What Might Have Been: A Reboot Homage
by Stephen Tannhauser
Summary: An alternate take on the "Penny and Leonard meet in a bar before the Pilot" concept. With thanks and credit to son-goku5. Rated M for adult content (specifically Chapters 2 and 6).
1. Chapter 1

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: A REBOOT HOMAGE

 **Description:** An alternate take on the "Penny and Leonard hook up just before the Pilot Episode" concept. Rated M for smut (if hopefully as tastefully phrased as possible).

 **Notes:** As you may have gleaned from the title, this is an even less original story than most fanfic, because it's a close alternate take on the basic idea of the incredible ongoing series "What Could Have Been" by the respected personage known on this site as **son-goku5** : what would happen if Penny and Leonard first met in a bar just before she moved into #4B, and how would that change how their relationship took shape? While I continue to be a massive fan of the original story, I was inspired to this reimagination by some thoughts on dialogue and characterization that to me felt a little more like the characters we know from the show (especially as we know them to have later developed), my OCD approach to typography, and an interest in seeing the situation from Leonard's point of view as well as Penny's. Nonetheless, this story's basic plot structure, supporting cast, and much of the smut are all inspired directly by the original. If you like this work at all, I _strongly_ recommend going on to read son-goku5's entire series, and to direct any positive reviews and feedback to son-goku5. Hopefully this tale is taken in the spirit of homage and admiration in which it is intended.

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. Much of the dialogue in this story is adapted directly from the 2007 pilot episode script by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The characters of Frank and Harry are owned by son-goku5.

\- 1 -

Penny had been storming around downtown Pasadena on foot for nearly six hours, driven by a fury so intense she literally couldn't sit still; by the time that anger finally ran out, leaving behind nothing but a bitter weight of self-loathing and a growing worry that was getting disquietingly close to genuine panic, the clock had slipped past midnight and the day had passed from Monday into Tuesday. Her feet were sore, her shoulder was sore from the weight of her overnight bag, and her eyes were sore from tears both angry and miserable; she finally decided she was tired enough to actually sit down and get herself thoroughly plastered without getting into a brawl. She walked into the first bar she found, passed the big guy sitting in the bouncer's chair by the door and went straight to the counter.

The place was dimly-lit and mostly empty, which didn't surprise her. She'd worked enough part-time service jobs to know Monday nights were usually the slowest times of the week. A man and a woman sat in a corner, nursing pints with the weary but content look of professionals just off their shift; the grey-haired bartender was stacking glasses under the counter; and a single other patron, a smallish guy in a hoodie, leant on his hand at one end of the bar with a beer bottle in front of him. Penny dropped onto a stool at the centre of the bar, sliding her overnight bag to the floor. The bartender came over and inclined his head. "Evening, miss. What can I get you?"

"Shot of vodka. Straight up." She drummed her fingers on the bartop until the bartender came back with the shot glass, and knocked it back, shuddering as it went down. "Beautiful. Can I have another, please?"

"You want to start a tab, miss?"

Penny hesitated. It had been a while since she'd made much beyond minimum payment on her VISA; there was an ATM in the corner, but she'd gutted her checking account to cover what she'd thought would be next month's rent at her old place. "No, I'll pay as I go." She opened her purse and rummaged around for the rent cash envelope. Unfortunately, it only took a few seconds for the unpleasant truth to hit her: she'd left the envelope at Kurt's when she stormed out, and had next to no cash on her at all.

"Ah, _shit_ ," she muttered, close to weeping again. She mastered herself and gave the bartender a pleading smile. "Don't suppose you'd let me wash dishes for half an hour?"

"Put it on my tab, Harry." The voice came from her left; she started, and turned to see it was the guy in the hoodie. His voice, though slightly nasal, was a surprisingly firm baritone for his size. "And her next one, as well."

 _Oh boy._ Penny closed her eyes. She normally had no objection whatsoever to this sort of thing, but she just wasn't in the mood for it tonight, or for any of what tended to follow. Not after what had happened. She swiveled on her stool to face him more directly. "Look, buddy, if you want to buy me a drink I won't say no, but I am not looking for a hookup tonight, so just be aware that's not gonna happen."

"Fine by me," was the guy's unexpected answer. He turned towards her, and despite herself, her eyebrows went up—he looked more like the sort of guy she normally saw hunched over a laptop in Starbucks, with large black square-frame glasses and curly dark hair. Behind the glasses, his eyes were dark and a little bloodshot, but still sharp and piercing. "Believe me, I'm _not_ up to trying to hit on anyone tonight. But you looked like you needed it."

Which was undeniably true. And the vodka was already spreading its warmth through her, making it hard to hold on to her peevishness. Maybe she was just being ungrateful. "I did," she admitted at last. "Thank you." She nodded to Harry the bartender as he brought the second shot, and knocked that back too, slapping the empty glass down on the counter and breathing deeply.

"Huh. You _do_ look like you need it," remarked the man in glasses. "You want one more?"

It seemed a harmless enough question, but it raised Penny's hackles. Men buying her drinks was one thing; men buying her a lot of drinks very quickly was usually a warning for something else. Hell, that was how Kurt and she had met. She sized the guy up. He wasn't bad-looking, but a lot smaller than most. That suggested one possible avenue of protection.

"Okay," she finally said. "On one condition: you drink with me. That way I know this isn't just about using booze to get me to where I'll say yes."

The guy's eyebrows went up. "Oh, my God. Has that _happened_ to you?"

Penny shook her head, smiling despite herself. "Oh, sweetie, you would not believe the things some guys have tried to get into my pants. Booze was just the least of it." She slid off her stool, walked over and took the seat beside him. "But if you can match me shot for shot, by the time I'm drunk enough to say yes you'll be too drunk to remember to ask. So we both win."

The guy thought that over, then shrugged. "On any other night that'd kind of freak me out. But on any other night I wouldn't be pissed off enough to make that sound like a good idea. What the hell." He signaled the bartender. "Harry? Can I get one of those shot glasses? And leave the vodka bottle."

Penny raised her eyebrows. "Whoa, stepping up to the plate with the big boys. Well done." She held out her hand. "I'm Penny."

"Leonard," said the man in spectacles, shaking her hand.

* * *

With the distant part of his mind that was still calm and sober, Leonard thought to himself in stunned bemusement: _Oh my God, what the hell are you doing?_ He did _not_ strike up conversations with strange women in bars, no matter how gorgeous they were—and this girl Penny was quite possibly the single hottest person he had ever seen at this close a range: as tall as he was or even a little taller, perfect features, long golden hair, bright green eyes and an absolutely killer body only barely hidden by that tight blue T-shirt and denim shorts. He knew himself well enough to know that in any other context he wouldn't even have dared breathe in the presence of a girl like this without an excuse to talk to her.

But then again, it hadn't really been her face or her body he'd responded to, had it? It had been her voice. More specifically, the notes of fatigue, despair and hurt he could hear in that voice, the tiny tremble of sudden, desperate fear. It was a tone he recognized; it was the tone of someone at the end of a rope and running out of options. And the look in those green eyes—eyes, he could now see, visibly reddened from weeping, for all their sparkling surface bravado—told its own tale of rage and grief. With the detachment of a buzz he'd already spent a good few hours working on, Leonard decided that what this girl probably needed, more than anything else, was simply a friend; certainly not a come-on from a total stranger, much less a geek like himself.

The thought was oddly liberating—it was so much easier to talk to women when you didn't have to worry about impressing them. He nodded thanks to Harry as the other man left the bottle and glasses, poured them both a shot, then lifted his glass and clinked it against hers. " _Na zdorovie_ ," he said with straight-backed dignity, and tossed it back along with her.

The potency of the liquor ripped a cough out of him. Penny laughed as he shook his head. "I'm guessing you're not used to the hard stuff, Leonard?"

"Not on a regular basis, no." Leonard pressed one hand to his breastbone, breathing hard until he got his equilibrium back. _Well, you weren't worried about impressing anyone, were you?_ "In fact I'm kinda remembering why I don't do this. Maybe I'm not that pissed off." He looked thoughtfully into space, then shook his head again. "Nah, you know what? I still am. Want another?"

"Hit me." Penny took the shot glass once he'd filled it, but didn't just throw it back this time. Instead, she tilted her head and gave him a challenging look. "So, Leonard, what's got you so pissed off that you're drinking by yourself in a bar on a Monday night?"

"Oh, you don't want to hear about my troubles," Leonard demurred.

Penny patted the bartop. "No, no, I really do. It'll keep me from having to think about _my_ troubles. So what is it, parents? Boss?" With a sly smile: "A girl?"

Leonard laughed morosely. "Ha! I wish. No, it's my roommate." He considered trying to sum up or diplomatically move on, then chose not to bother; why _not_ vent? "In a lot of ways the guy's my best friend, but he is _unbelievably_ difficult to live with sometimes. You hear all about how geniuses have quirks? Well, this goes beyond quirks. This is full-on whackadoodle crazy."

"Crazy? Like how?"

"Oh, God, where do I start?" Leonard held up one hand, ticking off points on his fingers. "First, there's his obsessive-compulsive adherence to an insanely detailed daily routine; seriously, I've met people on the autism spectrum who handle change better than he does. Then there's the phobia of germs and dirt that verges on the psychotic. And there's the fact that emotionally he's a completely narcissistic child; he always has to be right, always has to be the best—I suppose when you go to college as young as he did it's not that surprising, but it's _really_ enraging whenever he lords it over you." He made air-quotes with his fingers and adopted a mocking tone. "'Oh, Leonard, my IQ is 187 compared to your 173, I'm a full standard deviation smarter than you. Oh, Leonard, I got my first Ph.D. when I was sixteen, you didn't get yours until twenty-four, how _do_ you cope with life as a stupid person?'" He glowered at the back of the bar. "Most of the time I can just write it off, but today, I think I just hit my limit. It was either come here and get drunk, or stay home and kill him."

"Hold on, hold on," said Penny suddenly. "Wait a second here. Did you just say you were twenty-four . . . when you got your _first_ Ph.D.?" Her eyebrows had shot up.

"Oh. Uh . . . ." Leonard shifted in his seat. "Well, actually I'm twenty-six now. And I still only have the one."

" _And_ an IQ of 173?" The eyebrows weren't coming down.

 _Oh, shit_. He hadn't meant to reveal either of those things; after being told details like that, people tended to think he was either an arrogant ass or a complete weirdo, or both. "Yeah, I guess . . . ." He sighed. "Oh, what the hell. Yeah, I'm almost as big a nerd as my roommate, like that wasn't obvious."

"Wow." He couldn't read Penny's expression, but it seemed more bemused than anything else. "What the hell do you do for a living?"

Time to get the topic off him. "I'm an experimental physicist at CalTech. How about you?"

"Ah." For the first time, Penny smiled what looked like a real, pleased smile. "Well, I'm an actress . . . ." Then she trailed off and shifted in her seat. ". . . um, trying to be, anyway," she finished in a lower voice, looking away. "Right now I just got a waitress gig at the Cheesecake Factory, to pay the bills." She gulped her shot and looked gloomily into her empty glass. "One of which is going to have to be rent, now. That's assuming I can even find an apartment I can afford in the middle of the month."

Leonard poured her another shot. "What happened to your old one? Landlord decide he wanted to charge more?"

"To quote you back at you: Ha, I wish. No." She paused, then gave a what-the-hell shrug and turned to face him. For all the benevolent detachment he'd intended, Leonard found himself caught by those green eyes as if by a hypnotist's swaying watch. "My interview today ended a little early so I went back to tell my boyfriend Kurt, with whom I've lived for the past two years, that now I'd be able to contribute to the rent again. But I decided to sneak in and surprise him." Penny spun her hand in a stay-with-me-here gesture. "You see where this is going?"

Leonard nodded slowly. "I think I do, but I'm hoping I'm wrong, 'cause the thought of somebody crazy enough to cheat on _you_ is really scary. And thank you for using 'with whom' correctly in a sentence, by the way."

"Thank _you_. But sadly, you are not wrong." The light that blazed now in those green eyes was clearly fury. "Instead of napping, like he told me he'd be doing because he has a late shift, I find him riding some strange chick with goth makeup, a belly ring and a lot more tattoos than me. And you know what the worst part is?" She paused to throw back her shot. "The worst part," she resumed, smacking the glass down on the bar, "is that I knew from friends he'd _already_ cheated on me at least three times! But each time, I kept telling myself: 'You know, it's just what guys do; we're not married, he's never cheated with the same person twice so it's not like a full-blown affair or anything, I don't have any proof so he'd only deny it if I accused him, and he hasn't gotten any of them pregnant or given me an STD, so maybe it's just something I have to get over,' you know? But when I actually _saw_ him . . . ." Her voice, which had risen in volume and accelerated, suddenly trembled and broke, and she abruptly turned away and held one hand over her mouth.

"Oh, my God," said Leonard, appalled. "What did you do?"

That got a short, sharp bark of a laugh. "I'm from Nebraska, what do you think I did? Grabbed my baseball bat, chased Chickie out of the apartment, broke his alarm clock and his bedside lamp, then got my stuff and left."

Leonard blinked, startled, impressed and—he had to admit it—more than a little amused. "Wow. That, uh, that isn't what I would have expected after the 'from Nebraska' explanation, but I'll buy it. Well done." He gave her a thumbs-up.

Penny chuckled shakily. "Yeah. Thank God I was still happy about getting the job, or I might have really lost my temper."

"Okay, now I really _am_ scared," Leonard deadpanned.

Penny smiled, then sighed and rested her chin on her hands. "You know the most pathetic thing? I still feel like I'm in love with him. Even though I hate his lying, cheating guts. If he showed up here and apologized, I'd probably take him back. 'Cause I always forgive guys like that." Her voice cracked a little, and she scrubbed angrily at her eyes, which shone wetly. "How stupid is that?" she demanded of him, as if he ought to know the answer.

"No, no, no," said Leonard in distress. Good God, this girl changed moods more rapidly than anybody he'd ever known; mercurial didn't begin to describe it. "It's not stupid at all. It's, uh . . . ." He grabbed for the first metaphor that came to him. "It's a paradox. And paradoxes are part of nature."

"How do you mean?" Penny frowned at him.

"Oh. Um, a paradox is when two apparently mutually exclusive things are nonetheless simultaneously true—like light. You look at Huygens, light is a wave, as confirmed by the double-slit experiment, but then along comes Albert Einstein and discovers that light behaves like particles too . . . ." He trailed off at her blank expression. "Okay, well, the point is this: You both love this guy and hate him, depending on how you think about him. You think about the good times, you love him; you think about the bad times, you hate him." He shrugged. In his own mind, he'd already decided that anybody who made a girl like this as unhappy as she obviously was didn't deserve her love, but that wasn't his call to make. "So I guess what I'm saying is, it seems like you have to make up your mind. How are you going to choose to think about him?"

"That . . . ." Penny took a deep breath, looking pensive. "That is a really good question." She shook her head. "And not one I'm sober enough to answer right now."

Leonard nodded. She probably wasn't wrong, and that was enough hard thinking for one evening. He lifted the vodka bottle again; it was still more than half-full, but he grimaced at it. "You know, I've kinda had my fill of this. Can we get something else?"

Penny smiled. "Sure. Want to get a table?" Leonard did his best to give a cool "lead on, milady" shrug, and she waved the bartender over. "Harry, right? Listen, Harry, can we get a bottle of tequila, a bowl of lime wedges and some salt? Thanks. We're gonna be at that table, over there." She pointed out a booth at the back and leant down to grab her bag. Then, as Leonard slid off his stool, she did something he hadn't expected at all: she took his hand and led him to the table, as easily and naturally as if they'd known each other for years.

 _This is not a pickup,_ he told himself, reminding himself en route to breathe. _This is not a pickup. This is you being a Good Samaritan. Nothing else._

* * *

At the booth, Leonard surprised her again; instead of sliding in beside her, as Penny had half expected he might after she'd taken his hand—most guys she knew would have taken that as a clear cue of encouragement—he had only nodded and taken the bench across from her. Penny wondered vaguely at her own disappointment. She hadn't been in the mood for a hookup, true, but it was always nice to think you had the option; and God knew a change from the muscle-bound jerks like Kurt might be a good thing . . . .

Then she shook her head. What was she thinking? She had come in here to get _away_ from her man problems. She didn't need to throw herself into a whole new set of them.

"So where _are_ you going to sleep?" said Leonard.

Penny sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I have no idea. I tried a couple of my friends but I haven't got an answer yet, and I don't really have the cash for a motel. Maybe I'll just keep walking around until the sun comes up and try Kim or Cheryl again . . . ."

"Well, I'd, uh, I'd offer you our couch—but that'd be sure to push Sheldon over the edge."

"Sheldon. Oh, right, the genius-slash-crazy man you live with. I don't know, I almost want to ask you just so I can see this guy's reaction."

Leonard shook his head very definitely. "No, no, trust me, you don't. Oh, thanks Harry—" The bartender had brought over the tequila shot fixings. Harry set them down on the table and, for some reason, gave Penny a meaningful look before heading back. Penny frowned.

"Does this guy not like women?" she murmured to Leonard.

"Um, he's straight as far as I know. Why do you ask?"

"He just gave me this _look_. Like: 'Watch out, girlie, I'm keeping an eye on you'—like he was expecting me to bust up the bar or something."

"Well, you do sound like an awfully violent person, Miss Nebraska Baseball Bat." Leonard suddenly grinned at her; the expression brought a startling life to his face and a sparkle to his eyes. He patted her hand reassuringly. "Don't worry about it, that's just Harry; he looks out for all his regulars."

Penny thought about that. Her eyebrows went up. "Wait—you mean he's trying to protect _you_ . . . from _me?_ "

Leonard looked sheepish. "I've . . . been taken advantage of by girls before. Financially, I mean. And once informationally—though that time Sheldon actually did save me from getting in real trouble. So Harry tries to give me a heads up when he thinks it might be happening again." He held up one hand as he saw the outraged look in her eyes. "Which is _not_ what's happening now. I am covering the tab tonight because _I_ want to, not because I want anything out of this."

 _Oh, you don't, do you?_ Again, for some reason, Penny felt irritated. The bartender's implicit accusation that she was the kind of girl who'd casually use some poor guy for her own benefit didn't sit well, but she supposed she could understand it. On the other hand, no matter how sure you were you didn't want a hookup, being told someone didn't want one with _you_ was still a little insulting. Sure, Leonard seemed like a big enough nerd that maybe he really did just mean to be a gentleman, which part of her found rather sweet . . . but another part—the Nebraska part, the part which tended to come to the forefront when drunk and the part which had ordered the tequila—felt distinctly like it had been challenged, and felt very much like answering it. This guy thought he could pretend he didn't want _her_ , did he?

Leonard glanced at the tequila bottle and the limes, then rubbed his hands together, looking a little apprehensive. "So. Uh, tequila shots. Never done this before. How does it work?"

"Ah. Well, it's very simple. Somebody as smart as you should have no trouble with this." Penny gave him her best heavy-lidded look, and was rewarded when he visibly gulped. She poured the golden spirit into the shot glass, put a lime wedge on the table beside it, then picked up the saltshaker. "First, you put some salt on the back of your hand, like this—it helps if you moisten your hand first." Suiting actions to words, she licked the back of her hand (noting with glee that he had swallowed again), sprinkled salt on the wet area, put down the saltshaker and picked up the glass. "Then, as quick as you can, you . . . lick the salt—" Lick. "—drink the shot—" Gulp. "Ugh!—and bite the lime." _Squirch,_ went the lime in her mouth; she sucked down the juice, tossed her head like a horse and coughed out the rind. Salt, sour, bitter and sweet mixed together in her mouth and lit a fire that rocketed up into her brain and down to her belly. When she'd gotten her equilibrium back, she carefully filled his shot glass, then put a lime wedge beside it and held out the saltshaker to him, never taking her eyes from his.

Leonard's eyebrows were almost to his hairline. Slowly, diffidently, he licked his hand and anointed it with salt, then picked up the shot glass. He paused a second, clearly marshalling his nerve, then licked the salt, gulped down the tequila and bit the lime wedge. The shudder that took him was even worse than the one he'd given at his first vodka shot. He spat out the lime, took off his glasses and wiped his streaming eyes. "Wow," he croaked. "That is both amazing and disgusting." Abruptly he grinned through the tears. "Huh, there's another paradox for you right there."

It was no doubt in part the tequila, but Penny had to admit that with that grin, and without the glasses, Leonard was actually startlingly cute. And sitting down—or lying down—his lack of height wouldn't be nearly such an issue. She nodded serenely. "Yes," she agreed, "yes, it is. Have another."

"Hit me," said Leonard, with remarkable aplomb.

The second shot went down easier and the third even more so. By the time the bottle was half empty, Leonard's grin had become distinctly giddy and the fire in Penny's stomach had spread to heat up other parts of her further south. Without quite consciously intending to, she slipped off her sandal and began running her foot very gently up and down Leonard's left leg. She'd meant it as just another flirtatious tease, but for all his skinny build, the muscles under her toes seemed pretty firm. And when his startled eyes snapped to hers, the goofy grin vanishing in surprise, she only gave him a slight smile and refused to look away, extremely aware of the tingling gooseflesh the shared stare was triggering across her skin.

"Um." Leonard cleared his throat. The obvious effect of her caresses only heightened her enjoyment, as did the audible crack in his voice. "I, ah, I may be misreading things here, Penny, but . . . didn't you say you were in no mood to be hit on?"

Penny nodded again. "I did," she said airily. "I did say that." She gave him another heavy-lidded look and lowered her voice. "I never said I wasn't in the mood to do a little hitting myself."

"I, uh . . . I see." Leonard took a deep and shaky breath. "Yes, that's a valid and important distinction."

* * *

 _Oh, my God. Is she actually_ coming on _to me?_ Leonard had only kept up his façade of coolness by firmly repeating to himself, over and over: _This is not a pickup. This is not a pickup._ He could handle himself perfectly well as a gentleman helping a lady in distress without thought of reward. He had absolutely no clue how to react when the lady in question turned out to have her own ideas about the matter. He supposed this might be some kind of joke—he'd suffered things like this before in high school, and usually wound up in a locker as a result—but there really didn't seem to be any audience here for something like that. And while he was no expert in reading women's expressions, Penny's catlike smile really didn't seem to have the bright edge of mischief he'd always seen in those joke-flirtations. She looked—as best he could tell in his drunken state—like she _meant_ it.

 _Now_ what was he supposed to do?

He was spared having to answer the question when an unfamiliar, deep and slightly slurred voice snarled at them out of the gloom of the bar. " _Here_ you are! Goddammit, Penny, what the _hell_ d'you think you're doing?"

Leonard's eyes bulged. The man striding up behind Penny was one of the biggest guys he'd ever seen, with shoulders like an ox, a shaved and sweat-shiny head, and dark eyes blazing with fury. Penny only let out her breath in an annoyed sigh and turned around. "Kurt, I don't know what you want, but . . . ." She trailed off as she looked up at him, suddenly a little less nonchalant. From the slight swaying in his stance and the sheen of sweat on his head, Leonard guessed that this man was just about as drunk as he and Penny were, and maybe more. Fear gnawed at Leonard's bowels. This guy looked like more than a high-school bully. This guy looked like the sort of guy who sent people to hospitals.

"What I want is for you to come home. Jesus, you know how many damn blocks I had to walk 'round Pasadena lookin' for you?" Kurt folded his arms, muscles bulging, and suddenly Leonard realized: _Come home—Kurt—oh,_ shit. _This_ was the guy Penny had left! The gut-gnawing fear was sliding rapidly towards real terror.

Penny, however, only gave the guy a disdainful sneer. "Looks like this wasn't the first bar you stopped into while you were looking," she observed acidly.

"Yeah, an' you're so clean and straight yourself, aren'cha? Come on, let's go home." Kurt reached down and tried to grab her shoulder. Penny jerked herself out of his grip with a glare, and he rolled his eyes. "Oh, for Chrissake, babe, will you stop overreacting?"

"Overreacting?!" Penny jumped to her feet, looking furious. "Seriously, _I'm_ overreacting? In the time we've been together I know you've cheated on me at least three times, and tonight I caught you for a fourth time in our _own goddam bed!_ Did those steroids fry your brain to the point you think I'd just let that go?!"

Kurt just grinned; with a startlingly quick move, he grabbed her by the elbows and tugged her closer to him. "I think you know how good I can fry _your_ brain, baby. I think I know how hard it's gonna be for you to walk away."

Penny stared up at him with a look that seemed to mix disbelief, fury and—for the first time—something like fear. But her voice lost none of its firmness. "Oh my _God_ , you're a pig when you want to be," she told him. "Get this through your thick skull, Kurt: I am _never getting back together_ with you, ever. Now get the hell out of this bar and the hell out of my life."

"No," said Kurt, with the frightening finality Leonard remembered from every year of school: the finality of a bully tiring at last of playing around. He let go of Penny's elbows and grabbed her upper arm with one hand; Penny gave a sudden high-pitched squeak, blinking down at his iron-handed grip. "Babe, you're being stupid and childish. You'll see in the morning, it'll all make sense. Let's get home and—"

"I think you should let the lady go, sir."

For a second Leonard had no idea who'd spoken. Nor did he understand why Kurt now looked at least a little bit shorter. It was only when both Penny and Kurt turned to stare at him that he realized: _He'd_ said that. And stood up to stare directly into the bigger man's eyes. "And I think," Leonard found himself going on, with a kind of cold fury he'd had no idea he was even capable of, "that if anybody's being stupid here, it's you."

Kurt stared at him, then gave a short bark of laughter and leaned in with a glare. "Okay, little buddy, you shut your mouth right now or I'll shut it for you. You hear me?"

"Lay off him, Kurt!" Penny snapped. "He's my friend, and I can already tell you he's a better man than you'll ever be. God knows he's definitely _smarter._ "

Leonard wished he was less terrified; it would have been nice to be able to appreciate the sentiment, even if he suspected it was meant more as insult to Kurt than compliment to him. Kurt only laughed even harder. "This, this _dwarf?_ Oh, come _on_. I could eat this guy for breakfast and have room for donuts!"

"In principle, yes, I think you probably could." Leonard gulped as Kurt swung slowly back to glower at him even more fiercely. He could hear the quaver in his own voice, but the cold anger underneath drove him on. All he needed to do was keep this up for just a minute or so more. "In practice, there's, ah, there's a very good reason why you're not going to do that right now."

"Really," said Kurt. He let Penny go and, before either she or Leonard could move, grabbed up the half-empty tequila bottle by the neck and smashed it on the table. The stinging smell of the spirit filled the air. Penny yelped and jumped back. The sharp points glittered in the bar's gloom as Kurt swung the broken bottle towards Leonard, a snarl of rage distorting his face. "Exactly what are you gonna do to stop me, little man?"

Leonard's pulse hammered in his ears; his face felt cold. The alcohol he'd drunk roiled in his stomach, and it took all his willpower to keep from throwing up. "Well," he managed, "it's not something I'm _going_ to do, per se, it's, well, it's something I've already done. Did a long time ago, in fact." _Come on, come on,_ he thought, _let me stall you just a few more seconds . . . ._

"Oh yeah? And that was?"

Leonard drew breath to answer . . . and movement from behind Kurt caught his eye. He let out his breath in a massive sigh of relief and, stunning himself, found a smile. And said, simply:

"I made friends with the bouncer."

Before Kurt could process that a massive hand came out of nowhere and seized his wrist, squeezing hard.

* * *

Kurt cried out and dropped the bottle, which burst apart on the floor; Penny yelped again and hopped backwards, grabbing onto Leonard's shoulders to keep from falling. Eyes wide, she gaped up at the huge man who'd grabbed Kurt. He had to be at least six-foot-eight or -ten, maybe close to three hundred pounds, none of it fat; his T-shirt strained tautly around his shoulders and biceps, which were even more massive than Kurt's. But the grin he sent Leonard's way was astonishingly cheerful. "You okay, Dr. Hofstadter?" he said, in a voice like a tractor-trailer engine rumbling into motion.

Leonard nodded, closing his eyes as if he was fighting to stay on his feet. "Yeah, Frank, thanks. And look, I told you, out of the classroom you can call me Leonard. Especially when you're saving my ass."

Frank shrugged amiably. "I'll try, Doc, but I was brought up to respect my teachers. And the ass-saving's just part of the job. Okay, buddy," he said to Kurt, "time for you to clear out of here."

Kurt's snarl deepened. "I'm not going _anywhere_ 'til that _bitch_ leaves with me!" he shouted, and tried to wrench his wrist out of Frank's grip. The shock on his face when he failed was almost worth this whole night just to see, but he didn't give up, throwing himself into a flailing struggle as he struck at Frank with his free hand, lurching back and forth and knocking down several chairs. Frank huffed out an annoyed breath and with startling speed spun Kurt around, slamming him face-down onto another table; Kurt's yell this time was wordless, and in real pain. For half a second Penny wanted to shout _Let him go!_ . . . but as if reading her mind, Leonard glanced at her, his dark eyes sad but unyielding. Penny shuddered and stuck her hands under her armpits, holding them fast.

Frank directed a look at the two patrons in the corner, who'd been watching with what looked like professional appreciation. "Rick, Dana? Little help, guys?"

"Oh, c'mon, Frank, we're off duty," the woman complained.

"Ah, quit whining, Danes," said the man, getting up. "Besides, for this jerk this'll be a pleasure." He walked over, leant down so Kurt could see him and flashed a badge. "Okay, buddy, Pasadena police; you're under arrest for disturbing the peace, assault, damaging private property and being a gigantic ass-douche. Danes, you wanna call it in?"

"On it," said the woman, evidently the cop's partner and already on her cellphone. Rick pulled a pair of handcuffs out from under his coat and slapped them on Kurt, hauling him back upright and steering him towards the door as he reeled off Kurt's rights in a bored monotone. Kurt didn't stop yelling, but from his stumbles he was clearly still too dazed to put up much of a fight. The female cop, Dana, followed them outside. Within minutes a squad car rolled up, and they bundled Kurt into it with blunt efficiency. Penny stared as the car drove away, and the off-duty cops came back in.

"I really don't ever, ever want to see that man again," she said. Infuriatingly, her voice trembled a little. If he'd even just _tried_ to reconcile, part of her knew, if he'd made even the most token gesture towards contrition and apology, she might have given him yet another chance . . . but she knew she'd finally seen Kurt's real character, and she'd never really be able to unsee it ever again. That particular paradox had been permanently resolved. Adrenalin coursed queasily through her veins, making her shake. Leonard put his hands on her shoulders, and in sheer reflex she leaned back against him, taking comfort from his warmth.

"Well, odds are you won't have to for at least twenty-four hours," said Rick. "If nobody bails him out, that's how long we hold the disorderlies if we're sure they're still dangerous. Or if we really just don't like them." He grinned. "Hey, Harry, can we settle up?"

"Sure thing," said Harry, from where he was cleaning up the mess Kurt had made. He glanced at Leonard and Penny. "We're gonna be closing soon. You guys want anything else?"

"Um—" She exchanged a look with Leonard, then shook her head. "No. No, we're good. Just the bill, Harry." She sat down, her knees suddenly weak. Leonard rubbed her shoulder gently, then got out his wallet as Harry came over with the bill.

When he reached for it, however, Harry held it back and grinned. "Okay, Doc. Do your stuff."

Leonard groaned. "Harry, come on . . . ." He reached for the bill, but Harry easily held it out of reach, and after a moment Leonard sighed. He closed his eyes and put his hand to his forehead, lips moving furiously for a second or two, then opened his eyes and held up one finger. "Sixty-three dollars and seventy-five cents, before taxes."

Harry laughed and flipped the bill open. Penny gaped at it. It was, indeed, for exactly $63.75. She stared at Leonard. "How the hell—? Do you read _minds_ or something?"

"Nope," said Harry, grinning hugely. "Just remembers everything he's had and does the math in his head quicker than I can with a calculator. And that's drunk as a skunk, too!"

Leonard forced a distinctly pained-looking smile and gave the bartender some bills. "Keep the change, Harry." He went to Frank and shook his hand. "Frank, I'll see you on Friday—remember, we're using really powerful magnets in the demonstration, so for the love of God, take your earrings out. Okay?"

Frank chuckled. "Gotcha. Goodbye, Leonard; goodbye, miss." He shot Leonard a sly smile. "Have a good time, you two."

Leonard blushed and shifted his weight awkwardly. "Frank, no, it's not—" Then he stopped as Penny deliberately threaded her arm through his, hanging off his elbow, and gave him a very feline smile. His flush deepened, and he glanced back and forth between them, clearly having no idea what to say. Penny solved his dilemma by simply ushering him out the door.

"Goodnight, Frank," she caroled back.

* * *

The warm night air did a good deal to settle Leonard's stomach and head as they ambled along the sidewalk, though the feel of Penny's arm still firmly entwined with his gave him an all-new set of butterflies. This was not at all how he'd expected things to go. Despite her closeness, Penny hadn't said anything for a while, and he wondered suddenly if perhaps she was as uncertain as he was. The thought was oddly reassuring.

"That guy, Frank," said Penny at length. "Is he really one of your students?"

Leonard nodded, relieved to be talking about something relatively innocuous. "Oh yeah. He's taking my applied physics class. Doing pretty well, too. He's thinking of going into teaching the college-prep courses in high school."

"Wow." Penny blinked. "You know, I'd have thought somebody built like that, he'd be a wrestler, or a football player or something."

"Well, for what it's worth," Leonard confessed, "the first time he came into class and sat down, I kinda thought the same thing. But like I said, he turned out to be a great student, and we're both _Star Trek_ fans. It was a real lesson to me, actually."

His smile faded, and he looked thoughtfully into the distance, remembering the epiphany. "I got bullied a lot as a kid . . . I know, I know, big surprise. So you'd think I'd know better than anybody not to judge by appearances. But I can make that mistake too, and there's so much you miss by just looking at the surface. Some of the people I knew back then, they've probably spent their life just running at the surface level. But one day that's gonna go: people lose their looks, their bodies, their hair . . . what'll they have left, after that?"

He glanced at Penny, and realized she was staring at him like he'd grown an extra head. His face heated, and he looked down. He had been rambling, hadn't he? "Not that I would ever indulge in _schadenfreude_ about it, or anything," he added in a deliberately self-mocking tone.

Penny frowned. "Shodden-what?"

"Oh. German word. It means, well, there's no direct English word for it, but it's the happiness you feel when you watch someone else get taken down a peg, or get what's coming to them. The Chinese have a proverb: 'There is no pleasure so great as that of watching a friend fall off the roof.'"

Penny laughed. "Oh, is that the word for that? Back in Nebraska we just called that auditioning for _America's Funniest Home Videos_."

Leonard chuckled. "Well, you know the old joke: Those Germans, they've got a different word for everything."

"Yeah, it's almost like a whole 'nother language," Penny deadpanned. Then she arched an eyebrow at him and grinned mischievously. "So, you're a _Star Trek_ fan too? Can't say I'm hugely surprised. At least you don't live in your parents' basement—do you, like, dress up in costumes and go to those big events? Whole rooms at home full of action figures, that sort of thing?"

Leonard cleared his throat, the old awkward feeling returning. "Not _rooms_ ," he said. "Maybe a bookshelf. Or two."

Penny squeezed his arm, nestling closer. "Chill, Leonard, I'm just teasing you. Look, every guy I've ever known had _something_ he was obsessed about. Sports teams, World Series stats, rock bands, muscle cars, fishing—even my dad used to go into these over-the-moon raptures when he found something new for the garage tool set." She grimaced. "At least your obsessions don't work in the adult film industry."

"Oh, well, if that's your standard for creepiness I'll have to introduce you to my friend Howard. Next to him I'm a positive beacon of mundanity."

"Yeah, I'll pass on that, thanks." But she smiled warmly at him, and for the first time, the thought he'd been clinging to— _This is not a pickup_ —really hurt.

Still, it wasn't every night you got to spend walking along the boulevard with a beautiful girl on your arm, even if nothing else came of it. He smiled back and, for the first time, allowed himself to settle comfortably against her as well. After all, if it wasn't a pickup, there was no risk in it. Right?

* * *

For someone as astonishingly smart as he was, Penny thought, it was remarkable how easy it was to talk to Leonard, now that alcohol had lubricated him out of his awkward shyness at least—she hoped he wouldn't freak out as he sobered up. They strolled along, chatting amiably about friends and life and past mistakes, while Penny ooh'ed at some of his scientific factoids and he laughed at her stories of misadventure in Nebraska. But fatigue, post-adrenaline crash and tequila were bound to catch up with her sooner or later. Presently she yawned.

Instantly she felt Leonard tense against her, and frowned at him. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing! Nothing. I guess I just realized maybe I was keeping you out too late, or something. I know you still need to find someplace to sleep, and I didn't want to be a bother . . . ."

She gave him a bemused look. "Leonard, I yawned because I was tired. That's all. You always overthink things this much?"

After a moment, he smiled ruefully. "Yeah, actually, I do, it's a chronic weakness. Seriously, though, we should think about finding you a bed, it's coming up on two a.m. You sure there's nobody you can call?"

Penny sighed and shook her head. "You sure I can't crash on your couch? Never mind," she cut him off at his unhappy look, "I know, I know, crazy roommate. No, I already tried everybody I can. You got any other ideas?"

Leonard snapped his fingers. "Yes I do, as it happens. There's a motel not two blocks from here. Come on." He grabbed her hand and started pulling her after him.

"Oh, Leonard, no—I can't afford a motel, and I'm sure as heck not going to make you pay for it—" But he wasn't slowing down, and she sighed and relented. It wasn't like she had much other choice. She could get his number and pay him back in a couple of weeks, maybe.

 _Or you could pay him back tonight,_ whispered the Nebraska part of her, and before she realized it she'd snuck a quick glance at his butt. She stomped on that impulse firmly. She had said she didn't want a hookup, and she meant it. She was sure of that. (Wasn't she?) And while she wasn't above flirting with guys to get stuff, there was a big difference between undoing a couple of buttons for a drink and putting out in exchange for a roof over your head—and being _expected_ to put out as payback only pissed her off. That wasn't who she was.

 _Yes,_ the Nebraska part acknowledged, _that's all true. But you_ have _been known to call it a "reward" . . . at least when you were looking for an excuse to do what you really wanted to do anyway. So if you're thinking about it so much now, what do you think that means, huh?_

Penny told herself to shut up. But she didn't let go of Leonard's hand.

The motel was a typical travelers' stopover, a long two-floored building with parking spaces before each door. Leonard took her into the main office, where he tapped the bell until a heavyset female clerk came wandering out of the back with a yawn. "Help you?"

"Yes please," said Leonard, getting out his wallet. "A room for the night; I'll pay up front. And could I book some breakfast in the morning, please?"

"Sure thing, mister," said the clerk, typing into the desk computer. "Breakfast for two, that'll be, let me see . . . ."

"No, no, just for one."

The clerk stopped, glanced at Penny, then gave Leonard the fisheye. "Look, young man, I don't want to know what you do in your private life, but this isn't the kind of establishment that sells rooms by the hour, if you know what I mean . . . ."

Penny's mouth dropped open. But to her considerable surprise, Leonard exploded before she could. "How _dare_ you!" he snapped. "What do you think, somebody books a room on a friend's behalf when she gets thrown out of her home, and that means _prostitution_ has to be involved? Do you want me to come back tomorrow and tell your manager about this? Or write about it on every review website from Craigslist to Yelp? Lady, you've got about three seconds to apologize, or we are out of here—"

"All right, all right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" The clerk cringed back, looking flummoxed, but Penny felt absolutely no sympathy. "Here, tell you what—I'll add breakfast for two to the bill free of charge. That make things better?"

"No, we don't _need_ —" Leonard broke off and sighed, clearly giving up any attempt to explain. "Okay, fine, that'll do. Thank you." He grabbed the key from the clerk and stomped out, then led her along the row of doors to the one marked on the key. Penny followed, thinking hard about what it meant that he'd been so willing to stand up for her, and so insistent that he didn't want anything from her. Thinking about being alone tonight, and liking the idea less and less by the second.

"Sorry about that," said Leonard, as he opened the door. "I guess maybe they get the wrong type of customer once in a while. If I'd known they'd react like that . . . ."

"No, it's okay." The room itself proved to be far better than she'd feared: clean and warm, with a large well-dressed bed, a bathroom with an actual bath, a TV set and a small closet with a full-length mirror on one of its doors. Penny put her overnight bag on the dresser and looked around. "I've handled worse stuff than that before. And I can put up with it for a decent bed."

Leonard folded his arms and nodded in satisfaction. "Well, then, looks like you're all set. And . . . I guess that's my cue." He turned, and was heading back to the door when she spoke up.

"Leonard, wait a minute. Can I ask you something? Why are you doing all this?"

He stopped, adjusting his glasses nervously. "What do you mean?"

She put her hands on her hips and gave him the most direct look she could. "Is it just because I'm a pretty girl and you're trying to play white knight? Because I have to tell you, I don't like feeling like a charity case."

Leonard opened his mouth, then hesitated, visibly thinking about the question. With a sigh, he lifted his hands and letting them fall. "I won't lie and say that isn't part of it," he said at last. "But honestly, Penny? This is more about me than you, when it comes down to it." He sighed and rubbed his temples. "I really don't like being angry about things. And tonight I was so mad at my roommate, and at myself for _being_ mad, I just needed to do something nice for someone to feel better about myself." He smiled wryly. "It didn't hurt that you are a pretty girl, but the fact that you took me seriously and listened to _my_ problems, without making fun of me for being a nerd or trying to get something out of me, was a big factor as well."

He paused a second, then put on a bemused look. "Also, I'm still quite drunk," he added with a pedantically lifted finger, and she laughed. "Without being drunk and pissed off enough not to think about it, I'd probably never have had the nerve even to just say 'hi' to you. Because you really are quite astonishingly amazing."

Penny's face felt hot. "Oh, come on. Seriously, Leonard, I'm not that special. Why would you be afraid to talk to me?"

Leonard stiffened, blinking as if she'd hit him. "'Not that special'?" he repeated incredulously. "God, Penny, have you _seen_ you? Why do you think I told you any guy who cheated on you would have to be crazy? Look—come here. Over here." He steered her to stand before the mirror, taking up a position just behind her, his hands on her shoulders. In the mirror she could see both his face and hers, his chin just above her left shoulder; his breath was warm on her ear. "Okay. What do you see?"

"I see me. And your big floating head," she snickered. At the same time, she was acutely aware of his touch, his warmth, his closeness. She shifted her weight, and suddenly realized she wanted to feel his hands on her hips, as a guy making a more deliberate pass might have done.

But Leonard was too focused on her reflection to notice. "Very funny. You know what I see?" He swept one hand down her image, like a game show hostess showing off a prize. "I see a woman so unbelievably beautiful she doesn't even realize how, how absolutely _breathtaking_ she is. And yeah, that includes things like the hair, the body, the eyes, whatever, but it's not just that. You're warm, you're funny, you're friendly, you're caring, you're tough enough to roll with life's punches and stand up for yourself against a brute like your ex . . . and your smile literally lights up a room." Somewhere in that amazing speech, he had turned to face her, his hands still on her shoulders; she stared at him, eyes wide. "Which is why I still can't believe anybody in their right mind would cheat on somebody like you. If _I_ had somebody like you I'd—"

He broke off abruptly, flushed, and looked away. "Well. That's not really the point." He took a deep breath and let go of her, and the loss of contact actually made her draw in her own breath. "The point is, you deserve a good turn. Because you're a good person."

 _No I'm not,_ she wanted to say, but couldn't find the words. She looked at the mirror again, taking in her own poleaxed expression. Leonard's words echoed in her head. For a moment she felt dizzy, and strangely light, as if she'd come off a carnival ride into a cool breeze blowing straight through her. She tried to tell herself that it was the alcohol, and knew that it was not.

The sound of the doorknob opening made her turn. Leonard paused in the doorway, determinedly casual. "Anyway," he said, rubbing his hands, "you're all set for the night, and there'll be breakfast when you wake up. But I need to get home, I've got work in the morning. It was . . . ." He trailed off, and their eyes locked once more; he swallowed. "It was really good to meet you, Penny. Good luck."

For a moment, neither moved. Then Leonard turned away again, and it was that movement—that moment in which Penny realized not only that if she didn't do something he actually _would_ leave, because he really did just want to be a gentleman, but that she didn't _want_ him to leave—that pushed her over the edge.

She dashed across the room, caught him by one shoulder and dragged him back around to face her; he was so much lighter and smaller than Kurt that it was no effort at all. For less than half a heartbeat she hesitated, their faces inches apart, staring into his wide startled eyes, and then she pulled him into her arms and pressed her mouth to his, tasting the tequila they'd shared on his lips and his breath. Shock held him immobile in her grasp; she took advantage of his surprise to deepen the kiss, parting her lips, sliding her tongue in to find his and burying one hand in his dark curls. Then, in just that fraction of an instant where she had the barest flicker of wondering if she'd misjudged everything, his arms came down to lock around her waist and crush her against him, where she could feel beyond a shadow of a doubt how badly he wanted this too. The kiss became mutual, a gasping exploration of mouths and tongues. Penny's heart hammered in her ears while her core ignited with the heat the tequila had first touched off. She could feel the hard plastic of his glasses jammed against her cheek, and didn't care.

Without warning, Leonard suddenly pulled back, breathing heavily. She stared at him, still marveling at the newness of being able to look straight into someone's eyes without looking up. "What?" she gasped. "What is it?"

"I, uh . . . ." Leonard resettled his glasses with one hand, though he didn't remove his other arm from her waist. "Penny, I just—I need to make sure that . . . that _you're_ sure. You said you didn't want a hookup. And I don't . . . I don't want to be something you regret. Or—or to be _your_ charity case."

Penny swallowed, suddenly feeling like she wanted to cry. "Leonard," she husked, "trust me, I am never going to regret this. Or you. And believe me—" She smiled suddenly, and quoted his own words to him. "I'm doing this tonight . . . because _I_ want to."

He stared at her. Then, quite deliberately, he reached behind him with one foot to kick the door shut, took off his glasses, tossed them onto the small table by the bed, and pulled her mouth back to his.


	2. Chapter 2

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: A REBOOT HOMAGE

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. Much of the dialogue in this story is adapted directly from the 2007 pilot episode script by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The characters of Frank and Harry are owned by son-goku5.

\- 2 -

They mauled each other for a minute or so beside the bed before Penny lost her patience; she kicked off her sandals, then slid her left arm up to grab the back of Leonard's hoodie and pulled it violently off his shoulders, while her other hand darted in between them, popped the button on his trousers and yanked them open by sheer force. Leonard gave a muffled grunt of surprise, but cooperated as best he could, wriggling out of the hoodie as she shoved both pants and underwear downward to puddle around his ankles. She felt his legs flailing against her own as he tried to step out of the garments, but they tangled on his shoes and he lost his balance, falling backwards out of her arms onto the bed with a thump. Penny spared one second for a breathless giggle at the sight, then dropped to her knees, yanked off each of his shoes, grabbed socks and pants-hems in both hands and pulled the whole kit and caboodle away in one movement. "Get your shirt off," she ordered.

"Oh, yes ma'am, absolutely ma'am, right away!" The T-shirt came flying over Penny's head to land somewhere on the far side of the room. Penny skinned off her own shorts and panties in one quick move and jumped up to plant herself on the bed, now clad only in her own T-shirt and bra, straddling his body with hands and feet. She grinned fiercely, crawling slowly up him like a cat, not needing to look as she felt him stiffening under her with each inch she came closer. By the time she was close enough to let herself down atop him and kiss him deeply, she could feel him rock-hard and straining against her belly, the sensation enough to further liquefy her core. He might not be as sizeable or muscular as most of the men she'd known, but there was a wiry strength in there, and a startling heat coming off him, as if a blast furnace had fired up inside his body.

"Well, well," she purred between kisses. "You're not below average size _everywhere_ , looks like . . . ."

"You're not below average _anything_ ," he panted back. Suddenly he stiffened. "Penny, wait, wait. Um—I just realized, I don't have any, uh . . . ."

"Any what? Oh." Penny nibbled his ear. "So you really _don't_ go out planning to pick up gorgeous women and bring them back to motels, do you? Relax. I'm on the pill."

"Oh thank God." He resumed kissing her, any last hint of nervousness or disbelief dissolving in his sheer hunger for her. Within minutes, Penny was unable to stand feeling any more fabric between them, and sat up atop him to discard her shirt and bra. She smiled at his wide eyes, then reached down to take his hands and slide them up onto her breasts, moaning as he caressed them, gasping when he mustered the courage to rub and tweak her nipples into aching hardness. He sat up and buried his face in her breasts, kissing, suckling and biting each one, circling the areolae with his tongue, driving Penny further and further upwards into a haze of pleasure.

Finally she couldn't take any more. She pushed him back down, lifted herself up, took hold of him to guide him and slid herself down onto him, hissing as his hardness spread her wide and then sank in with agonizing slowness. Inch by inch she took him in until her weight was fully upon him, and she held still, delighting in the newness and the force of it. Leonard had closed his eyes and was mumbling something under his breath; she leant down to listen, and after a moment laughed breathlessly. "Oh my God," she murmured, "that's the chemical elements, aren't they?"

Leonard made a sound that was half-groan, half-laugh. "In alphabetical order from aluminum to zinc, sweetheart," he admitted through clenched teeth. "Otherwise this'll be over a lot sooner than either of us wants it to be."

Not a bad thought. "Should I wait?"

"Just a minute. 'Til I'm past the danger zone . . . ." He breathed slowly and deliberately for a few seconds, though he lost none of his hardness within her, and at last nodded. "Okay. Okay, but start slow. And—bear with me, if I do something wrong. This is . . . really not an area where I have a lot of practice."

Penny smiled down at him tenderly. "It's okay, sweetie. That's one of the best things about sex." She leant down and rubbed her nose against his. "All that happens if you screw up is, you get to try again. Now." Her grin turned feline. "You ready?" At his breathless nod: "Then hold on."

She placed her hands flat on his breastbone and began moving, a slow back and forth rolling of her hips that had her humming in pleasure within seconds. Leonard's eyes had closed, his mouth open, his breathing rasping like a file scraping steel; he brought his hands up to grip hers where they rested on his chest. Tension springs wound steadily tighter inside her belly and her groin. Penny changed gear, picking up speed and throwing in a gyrating, rotating movement, pressing down hard every few turns to drive him even deeper inside her; the third time she did it, he started bucking up to meet her, and they came together at some odd angle that scraped his hardness across that tiny little hypersensitive interior spot she'd so seldom found. The jolt of pleasure was almost electric, shocking a loud "Oh!" out of her and a teeth-clenched groan from Leonard. "Oh, my God," she gasped, wide-eyed, "what was that, do that again!"

"No idea, but I'll try—!" He put his hands on her hips to help control his movements and tried to match his rhythm to hers. They synchronized easily, and before Penny knew it Leonard had managed to find that magical angle again and locked in on it. She found herself yelping in a steadily rising pace of pitch and volume as her insides clenched tighter and tighter; far sooner than she'd expected, her orgasm burst over her in tingling, spasming waves, and she yelled affirmatives to both God and Leonard before collapsing over his chest, gasping for breath. Leonard's arms went around her, his own breathing shallow and fast.

"So—so that was okay, then?" he asked after a second.

Penny sniggered, still too limp for the moment to raise her head, and only nodded atop his chest. "Oh yeah," she panted, "that was okay. That was definitely, totally super A-OK." She shifted a little and realized with a start that he was still hard inside her. "Oh, my, you're still ready to keep going, aren't you?"

Leonard shrugged. "Well, I was trying to find the right angle, and when I did, it was just so . . . so amazing to watch you react that I almost wasn't thinking about that."

"Awww . . . ." Penny smiled tenderly at him again, then donned her evil grin once more. "Well, fair's fair—I think I can give you something to watch that'll help you right along . . . ." She sat up, pulled one leg up high and, without lifting herself off him, turned completely around, a move that in itself pulled another agonized groan out of Leonard's chest. Settling her feet to either side, she braced herself and began to bounce up and down again. At this angle, the friction against her G-spot was even fiercer, and she couldn't keep silent, moaning, gasping and crying out with each stroke.

Without warning Leonard's hands descended on her, one squeezing and massaging her cheeks as they slapped against him, the other reaching up to caress her bouncing breasts, fingers running over her nipples and adding shocks of pleasure there as well. "Oh God, yes," she encouraged him, "keep doing that!" He obeyed without hesitation, his touch growing bolder, squeezing and stroking and sliding all over her, the sheen of sweat that had broken out on her skin making the friction delightfully smooth. Seconds, then minutes, dissolved in pure sensation. She heard his breathing change behind her, speeding up and harshening; his stomach muscles tightened, and she felt him grow even harder inside her. "Oh, god, baby, yes, that's it, that's it, just like—"

She'd been close to climax again, but hadn't worried about trying to finish before he did; she was enjoying the powerful feeling of bringing him over the edge far too much. She hadn't reckoned on him feeling the same way, though. He bucked up behind her and plunged one hand down and around into her center, finding the point of their union and adding a furious yet delicate agitation right upon her nub and folds. Her yell this time was almost a shriek, as much surprise as pleasure, and she grabbed his hand with hers and joined the movement. Within seconds, she'd shattered for the second time, inner muscles spasming and clenching around him. Her cries had barely died away before he stiffened and gave out a guttural groan so deep and wrenching that for a second, she thought he'd hurt himself; then she felt him pulsing and throbbing inside her, and with an exhausted laugh let herself fall backwards, her weight driving them both back to the mattress.

For close to a minute they lay there, entwined, both trembling slightly in the aftershocks, until Penny finally caught her breath. She eased herself off him, the usual twinge of separation feeling even sadder than it normally did, and turned until she could bring her face into contact with his, kissing him deeply. "Oh my God," she murmured, "that was amazing. Thank you."

" _You_ were amazing. Thank _you._ " This close, she could tell he was having no trouble seeing her, even as myopic as his glasses suggested he normally was; his dark eyes were full of wonder, joy, and a kind of adoration she'd never seen before. He wrapped her in his arms and continued kissing her, slow deep soft kisses that for the moment had nothing of lust or heat in them, only gentleness. Penny returned the kisses gladly, astonished at his tenderness. She couldn't remember the last time a guy had just held her like this _after_ the sex—far too often they simply gave a perfunctory snuggle and then fell asleep, or rolled out of bed and started looking for their clothes to go home.

But tenderness or not, he was still a man. As the minutes rolled by the kisses gradually heated up again, becoming more passionate, and Penny felt him stirring back to life against her stomach. He separated to give her a yearning look; she smiled and rolled onto her back, pulling him atop her and opening her legs to wrap them around him. She wasn't ready for the night to end either. Locking her mouth to his, she put her hand on his buttocks to guide him in, drawing in breath through her nose with a gasp as he sank in once more.

Leonard's comparative smallness was a pleasant surprise, in this position; unlike many of the men she'd been to bed with, his weight wasn't enough to leave her feeling half-squashed. And when he began moving, she realized with delight that he had paid attention during their first go-round: his movements were a remarkable analogy to the ones she loved doing herself when she was on top, with the same rolling gyrations that she'd used. He alternated between fast and slow, controlling the friction, ratcheting her tighter and tighter again. But at this angle he didn't seem quite able to find the same spot he'd done before. She felt the frustrated tension in his back, wondered what to do, and then had an idea.

"Leonard," she whispered, "lift my legs up. Put them up on your shoulders."

He stopped. "Are you sure? Won't that be uncomfortable on your neck?"

She grinned and kissed him. "Trust me, baby, I'm flexible. And I really want you to hit that spot again." She spread her legs out wide and then brought them back up, and his last resistance collapsed. He pushed them up to their highest angle, settled himself in again and began thrusting. Within moments he'd found the target once more, and Penny shouted ecstatic encouragement to him as shockwaves of pleasure rolled through her.

She loudly rode out two more climaxes before he went off again, the second powerful enough that she didn't mind at all waiting the last minute or so for him. His cry this time was more a moan of relief than the agonized roar of earlier, but when he collapsed upon her, the sweat on his skin and the total relaxation of his muscles told their own story. She wrapped herself around him, reveling in the heat and dampness of him, the languid triumph of her own ecstasies, the smugness of knowing what she'd done to him and the gentle warmth that was just him. They exchanged soft, fluttering kisses, mouth to mouth, nose, cheek, shoulder, and neck, for what felt like both an amazingly long time and an all-too-short one.

* * *

 _If I died right this second_ , Leonard thought, _I wouldn't count my life wasted._ He hadn't, contrary to many people's first impressions of him, been a virgin before this night, but it almost _felt_ as if he had—never in his life had he imagined a partner as passionate as Penny, a lover so completely, unselfconsciously and wholeheartedly _into_ the act, into _him_ , that she'd somehow pulled him straight past every fear and insecurity he'd ever had. For the first time in his life, the worry that he was hurting, offending or disgusting his partner with his body, or his desire, had disappeared utterly. He felt blissfully light and empty, warm and limp, welcomed in every cell by this unbelievable amazing woman whom he hadn't even known three hours ago.

But biology, like time and entropy, marched on with its own demands. Gradually he became aware that he absolutely had to get to the washroom. From Penny's slow, even breathing and utter relaxation, he guessed that she'd fallen asleep, and began to disentangle himself with careful, tentative movements. He hadn't gotten far, however, before she twitched and started, and grabbed for his hand as he tried to sit up.

"Wait, Leonard—where are you going? You're not leaving, are you?"

"No! No, I'm not leaving." It didn't even occur to him to wonder why she sounded so plaintive; the only thing that mattered was to reassure her. "I'm just going to the bathroom."

"Oh." Penny released him, looking a little embarrassed. Then, as he got up—his legs felt astonishingly weak—she suddenly raised a hand. "Um—can you be quick? I kind of need it too." She nodded down at herself, grinning sheepishly. "Downside of no condom—what goes in tends to come out, sooner or later."

He couldn't argue with that. "Well, I was going to take a shower, actually, and head off my hangover, so no reason you couldn't, um, take care of your business at the same time . . . ." Then a thought occurred to him. Two hours ago he would never have dared voice it, but now—hell, why not? He folded his arms, trying to look casual, and suggested, "Or, you know, you could even join me. If you wanted. Saves a lot of time that way."

Penny tilted her head and gave him a wry look. "Really? That's the line you're going with, 'It saves a lot of time'? You could have just said, hey, babe, feel like some shower sex for round three?"

Leonard felt his face heat, but he laughed. "Cut me some slack, I'm still getting the hang of this. As it happens, no, I was not planning to go for full-on shower sex—"

"Well, why the hell not?" Penny grinned at him.

"Oh." Wow; this woman really _wasn't_ phased by anything. "Um, well, to be honest, first because I didn't know if you'd, you know, be into that—it isn't always safe, or sanitary—and second . . ." He cleared his throat, sure that his face must be red enough now to see even in the room's dim light. "I, uh . . . I'm pretty sure the musket rifle hasn't reloaded yet. If you get what I mean."

Penny laughed, shaking her head. "Okay, you just officially used the nerdiest image for that I've ever heard. But yeah, I could stand to get clean." She held out her hand, and let him pull her to her feet. "Lead on, sweetie. Oh, let me get my bag first, though—I'd rather use my own shampoo. Motel stuff's crap."

* * *

Penny waited until they'd had a good few minutes of relaxation under the hot water, and soaped themselves and each other down thoroughly—making sure to clean herself out discreetly with a washcloth while Leonard was rinsing shampoo from his hair—before she pointed out to Leonard that even if he wasn't ready to perform again, she was more than open to certain other actions. Fifteen minutes later, the hot water finally ran out just as she was wailing out the fourth orgasm he'd given her in those fifteen minutes—this one with his fingertips dancing in her core, while she hung off him with her left arm around his neck and his chest pressed into her back. The other three had come under the ministrations of his tongue and lips, as he gladly dropped to his knees and proved that a genius IQ wasn't good just for memorizing long lists of facts but also for figuring out very quickly, and remembering flawlessly, exactly what locations, intensity of pressure and speed of stimulation worked for maximum effect.

They had to scramble out of the stall as the water temperature plunged, and Penny's legs almost collapsed under her as she did. Only Leonard's quick reaction caught her. "You okay?"

"Oh, honey, I am so okay they're gonna put a picture of me in the dictionary next to the word. Just let me rest for a second." She plopped onto the toilet—the seat of which, fortunately, was down—and watched in dreamy appreciation as Leonard shut off the water, then toweled himself dry. He caught her watching and blushed. Penny felt like she might melt right there seeing it: how could someone so amazing at this be so self-conscious?

Taking pity on him, she bent down, grabbed a towel and started drying herself off. Her eyebrows lifted as she watched him fill a large glass of water, drain it quickly, then repeat the action. When he filled the glass a third time, she whistled. "Wow, you're that thirsty? Guess I must have worn you out pretty good too."

"Well, yeah, you did—but this is actually to stop a hangover. You know what causes hangovers, right?"

"Uh, yeah; booze. Big duh."

Leonard smiled. "Yes, true, but the interesting thing is _how_. See, alcohol is actually a diuretic—it encourages you to expel moisture, but the alcohol itself stays inside your liver, where your body has to burn minerals and nutrients to break it down. It's the loss of minerals, vitamins and fluids that causes the headaches. So if you rehydrate—" he suited action to words, by draining the third glass "—it helps prevent the hangover." He lifted the glass. "Want some?"

Penny assessed herself. "You know, I actually feel pretty sober, all things considered." She grinned flirtatiously at him. "I think we must have sweated all the booze out."

"Wouldn't surprise me." Leonard's return grin was a marvelously endearing mix of embarrassment and smugness; it made her want to jump him all over again right there. For half a second she seriously considered doing just that. Then a massive yawn caught her by surprise, and she blinked as a wave of exhaustion swept over her. Leonard took her arm gently and pulled her to her feet. "I think maybe we'd better try to get some sleep," he suggested.

"Yes, yes. Sleep is good. Let me brush my teeth first, though."

She dug her toothbrush out of her night bag, then pulled out the new one she'd gotten from her last dentist's visit and gave it to Leonard. They brushed their teeth together, both completely and unselfconsciously nude, sharing the mirror. Penny wondered why it felt so strange, and then it struck her: it didn't feel strange at all—it felt perfectly comfortable, almost domestic, like they'd known each other for years instead of for less than four hours. She hadn't felt this relaxed sharing a bathroom with Kurt until months after she'd moved in with him.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror. What the hell did all this mean? She'd just gotten out of a relationship; did she really want to jump headlong into another one right away with a man she still didn't really know, no matter how great the sex?

"Penny?" Leonard stroked her shoulder.

She realized she'd been standing motionless, toothbrush halfway to her lips. She shook her head and gave him a reassuring smile, then finished brushing, spit out the toothpaste and rinsed her mouth. Deciding to err on the side of caution, she drank two glasses of water herself. In the bedroom, she grabbed Leonard's hand and pulled him into the bed with her without bothering to ask or giving him a chance to get his clothes. Whatever her qualms about a relationship, she didn't want him leaving before he absolutely had to.

She pulled the coverlet over them both and wrapped herself around him again, snuggling into his warmth. His arms went around her, and the last thing she did was to lift her hand and interlock her fingers with his before dropping almost instantly into a satisfied sleep.

* * *

Somewhere around five her bladder woke her up. Penny stumbled to the bathroom, had a startlingly long pee break, then nestled back in beside Leonard and was on the verge of drifting off again when she suddenly realized he had gotten hard, his erection prodding her in the buttocks. The sensation brought her wide awake. "Leonard?" she whispered, grinning. "Ready for round three, are y—" She broke off when she revolved in his arms and saw that his eyes were still closed, his breathing slow and deep. Huh. Just normal morning wood, then.

Easing herself closer to enjoy the friction against her stomach, she considered waking him, but decided with some regret that they really did need sleep. She tried to settle back down. Unfortunately he chose that moment to shift in his sleep himself, and wound up pressing his hardness right against the one spot that made it impossible to ignore. Penny did her best to disregard things nonetheless, only for her own body to betray her when her hips involuntarily shifted to improve contact and friction, rubbing him over her folds. Oh, God, she was getting wet _again_! She half-heartedly cursed her own horniness—hadn't she gotten enough already tonight?

Apparently not; and neither, apparently, had Leonard. Even in his sleep she heard his breathing quicken, and his body reacted to her half-reflexive ministrations by pushing forwards, in turn increasing the erotic friction and pressure and ramping her own arousal further up. Penny was already too far gone to think clearly; there had been a reason she'd wanted just to go back to sleep, hadn't there? Or not wake him? Then he glided up her folds and stroked her center with the soft, smooth skin of his erection's underside, and she couldn't restrain a moan of delight, though she kept it deep in her throat.

Luckily the whole question was moot a moment later. Without warning—ooh, that bastard, he'd evidently decided he liked surprising her too—Leonard's arms came up around her waist and, without opening his eyes, he brought his mouth to the pulse point he'd discovered earlier on her neck, under her ear. Penny's yelp dissolved into a delighted, throaty laugh as his mouth worked against her throat. "Oh, God, you jerk! How long were you awake there?"

"Couple of minutes," Leonard admitted, speaking into her skin. "You'd already gotten things started, so I figured, what the hey . . . ."

"Well, you startled me, so you owe me something. My choice for position, this time."

"Your wish is my command, lady." He tipped his forehead against hers, smiling. "Want to be on top again?"

"No. No, I want something where you do the work." Grinning evilly, she kicked the coverlet off the bed, then rolled onto her stomach, lay her head down and parted her legs. "Fuck me, Leonard," she whispered. "Ride me hard."

"Oh, God," he breathed, and said nothing more as he scrambled into place. She reached back to help guide him to her opening, moaning loudly as his head skittered over her folds before he found the right angle and pushed in. She was so wet that it was effortless, but she let out a loud cry nonetheless at the penetration, pushing back against him as he settled his weight onto her back. Then he began the steady, rhythmic movement, finding her special spot— _again!_ How did he _do_ that?!—and not letting up, and Penny's eyes glazed out as the world went white.

* * *

Leonard had set his daily alarm on his phone, and it woke him at six-thirty as it always did. He hastened to shut it off, hoping to let Penny sleep, but the unavoidable noise of his movement as he collected his clothes seemed to nudge her out of her dreams. "Leonard?" she said muzzily.

"Hey, beautiful." Leonard knelt down beside the bed, putting his phone in his pocket. Sunlight was spilling in past the blinds, and it made her hair glow gold in the light. He was unable to keep a smile off his face. Sleepily, she returned his smile, reaching up with one hand to stroke the scratches and bite marks she'd left on his chest and shoulders—he hadn't had a chance to put his shirt on yet. He shuddered. "Oh, man. Please, Penny, don't make this harder than it is."

"But I _like_ making things hard," she murmured seductively, and snickered when his flush deepened. She let out a sigh. "This time you really are leaving, aren't you."

"I have to," he said apologetically. "I have to pick up Sheldon and drive us to work. Believe me, you have no idea how much I want to stay here, I just—I really, really can't."

"I know." She sighed again. "But before you go—come here." She held up her arms. He bent down, planning to bestow a single gentle kiss on her lips, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a deep, open-mouthed, ongoing embrace. Only his need to breathe finally drove him to break away, and even then, she kept her arms around his neck.

"Thank you. For the most amazing night I've had in a long, long time," she murmured, and kissed him once more.

"Thank _you_ ," he whispered back, stroking her forehead. She smiled and closed her eyes, the delicate caress lulling her back to sleep. Leonard finished dressing and checked his phone. Still a few minutes to spare. He looked at Penny's blissfully slumbering form and smiled. If the corner coffee shop was open, there might be time enough to put together one last thank-you gift . . . and, as it turned out, the shop was. He made some preparations for Penny, scribbled a quick note and, with a wrench in his chest he'd never dreamed he'd ever feel, left the room and let the door close quietly behind him. He hadn't quite been able to muster the nerve to ask _So can I see you again?_ during that final exchange, but at least his note would tell her how to reach him.

Of all the days to have booked a half-day off in the _afternoon_ , rather than the morning, he thought morosely as he walked down the street, turned left and headed for home, most of his mind still back there in that motel room. Still, the class he had to teach didn't allow for short-notice rescheduling, so he and Sheldon hadn't had much choice—

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and hit his forehead. Oh, God, and today was the day they were supposed to visit the high-IQ _sperm bank_ and try to make a sale; that was why they'd booked the afternoon off in the first place. Parts of Leonard's anatomy contracted in a dry, painful wince. _So much for that T1 line installation._

But really, in the end, he couldn't regret that.

* * *

Penny woke slowly, smiling, wrapped in a dreamy fog of warmth and satiety. It took a moment for the unfamiliarity of the bed to sink in, but when it did, she sat up, a little freaked out—where was she? Then the previous night came back to her. Her smile returned and blossomed into a grin, which widened even further when she realized she didn't even have a hangover. Leonard's remedy had worked after all.

 _Leonard. Oh my God, Leonard_. Who would have thought one drunken impulse hookup, one shy little geeky guy in a bar, would have made for such an awesome night? She shook her head, replaying every moment since they'd entered this room. She hadn't felt this happy, this satisfied, in . . . over a _year_ , she realized.

Her smile faded. Had she really just not known how bad with things Kurt had gotten, even before she caught him that unforgiveable last time? How long they'd been that bad? She didn't want to think she'd been that blind . . . but if even a one-night stand with Leonard could show up Kurt so badly—heck, if it could show up pretty much every other one-night stand she'd ever had . . .

. . . then maybe it could be more, she thought slowly. Maybe it _deserved_ to be more. The most wonderful moment of the night came back to her: not any of the climaxes, but that look in Leonard's eyes after their first round, that tender, passionate, devoted adoration that was completely and solely _hers_. That look of . . . .

The only word she could think of left her poleaxed: _Love._

 _Oh my God,_ she mouthed. Was this what love was supposed to be? Despite the example of her parents, a thoroughly active sex life in her adolescence and her years with Kurt, she'd never really quite made sense of the idea that some single other person was somehow supposed to become utterly vital to who you were. Dreamy crushes, aching horniness, cuddling, affection, fun, loyalty and even the pain of betrayal, she knew and understood all that. But this sudden feeling that part of her had _left_ with Leonard, that something vital and profound was just _gone_ if he wasn't here, like a physical hollowness inside her—she'd never felt anything like that, ever: not with Kurt, not with anyone, and if someone had described such a feeling to her she would have said, _"That doesn't sound healthy. Get help._ " God, she felt that way _now_ and it _still_ frightened her.

"I have to talk to him," she said aloud. She rolled over and grabbed for her phone on the nightstand, and only then did it hit her like an express train in the face: _they hadn't swapped phone numbers._ Oh, God, she didn't even know his full _name!_ Penny wracked her brain, trying to remember; hadn't his big friend Frank called him Doctor Something, at least once, last night? He had, she was sure he had . . . but she'd been drunk, and it was hours ago, and Leonard had told him to stop right away and he hadn't done it again. The name _would not_ come to mind. Bonhoffer? Houseman? Crap, crap, _crap._ She remembered he'd said he worked at CalTech, he was . . . _some_ kind of scientist—but beyond that her mind was blank. She groaned and slapped her forehead. God, she was such an idiot.

 _Wait a minute_ , she suddenly thought. Had he avoided leaving his number deliberately? It was hard to believe that of him, as sweet and unassuming and kind as he'd been . . . but then again, maybe that was exactly why he'd done it. He'd known she'd just gotten out of a bad relationship, after all. Maybe he hadn't wanted to put her in a situation where she felt obliged to consider herself in a new one right away, and with a total stranger at that.

 _Especially,_ pointed out the bleak ruthless part of her that she'd never liked much, _a stranger so totally different from your normal tastes—heck, call a spade a spade, Penny; he's pretty much a complete geek. Maybe he thought you wouldn't have given him the time of day, if you'd just met in a Starbucks somewhere. Maybe he thought that once you had a chance to wake up and think things over, you'd only want to move on, and he just didn't want to see you look awkward and uncomfortable when he asked if you could see each other again . . . ._

Penny put her hand to her open mouth, feeling horrified and ashamed. He couldn't really have thought she would treat him so badly, could he? After what they'd shared? Sure, he'd admitted to having next to no self-confidence in his normal life, and maybe—she forced herself to be honest—maybe in _her_ normal life, she wouldn't have taken a second look at him . . . but that was all _before_. Their lovemaking—yes, _lovemaking_ —had to have changed that.

 _Then maybe it's even worse,_ rejoined that bleak inner voice. _Maybe . . . it's not_ your _embarrassment he was worried about. Maybe it was_ his. _Maybe the Genius IQ Doctor just isn't into hanging out with somebody who never even finished community college, or watched_ Star Trek, _or whose favourite TV show is_ Sex and the City. _Maybe_ —and here the bleak voice turned to a sneer she could almost hear— _maybe your problem, Penny, is that out of bed you're just another perky shallow Midwest cornhusker. Maybe your problem is that you're just . . . plain . . ._ boring.

At the thought, she stopped. Then shook her head. "No," she said aloud. "I'm not boring. I'm delightful. I'm _adorable._ " She grinned, suddenly feeling better. She was doing exactly what Leonard had complained last night _he_ always did: she was overthinking things. They'd both been tired, in an unfamiliar place with unusual routines, and neither of them had remembered that one critical thing. That was all it was. It was aggravating and disappointing as all hell, but that was all it was.

She swung her legs out of the bed, grabbed up her clothes, and headed for the bathroom, then paused as her eyes fell on the table. A thermos-style travel mug bearing the logo of a local coffee joint sat there, next to a small container of milk and some packets of sugar, a paper bag with a couple of pastries sticking out of it, a folded-open newspaper, and a scribbled note with her name prominent at the top. Heart hammering, Penny grabbed the note.

 **Good morning, gorgeous. The room service here is pretty much crap, so I got you something myself—I don't know how you take your coffee so you'll have to do that part, sorry. The newspaper's been opened to the rent ads; I've circled some that look like they should be in your price range.**

Her heart melted, even as her lips curved up. God, he even used semicolons in his handwriting. She had never met _anybody_ who did that. But then, she'd never met anybody who went to all this effort for her either. Her eyes blurred at the next line in the note.

 **Last night was, bar none,** **the** **best night of my entire life.**

"The" had been underlined four times.

 **I hope it was at least half as good for you as it was for me. If you ever feel like doing it again—**

Penny held her breath. _Please tell me you put your number in my phone. Please tell me you put your number in my phone. Please tell me_ —

 **-you know my name, and you can find me in the CalTech directory. xoxo :) Leonard**

She stared at the note, unable to decide if she wanted to scream or to weep. Because, of course, as far as _he_ knew, she _did_ know his name. He knew she'd heard it, after all. And what kind of idiot would forget somebody's name after they'd spent an entire night screwing each other's brains out?

Seriously. What kind of idiot did that?

Wholly involuntarily, her fist clenched on the note, crumpling it between her fingers.

At last, mostly for lack of anything else to do, she showered, dressed, had her breakfast, and glumly began reading over the rent ads.

* * *

In the end, Penny got another paper and found an ad herself for something she could afford. The thought of having to owe even her new home to Leonard's help, after everything he'd already done, when she couldn't even remember his name or how to find him, just made her feel like a crawling insect. 2311 North Los Robles Avenue was nearby, looked decent enough in its photographs, and was well across town from Kurt's place; she wasn't happy when the landlord told her over the phone that the elevator was broken, but in her current mood that just felt fitting. People who forgot people who'd helped them deserved to have to walk up a few flights of stairs.

She lucked into one last break: when she caught the bus back to Kurt's place (and already, she'd started thinking of it as _Kurt's place_ rather than _their place_ —that said it all, didn't it?) to get her car and her stuff, Kurt was still gone. Evidently nobody had bailed him out of the drunk tank yet. She grabbed as much as she could, leaving what she couldn't carry; she'd have to get her TV back later, somehow. After that it was a long afternoon of carting boxes and bags upstairs to 4B. The day was hot, so she left the door and windows open to get a cross-breeze going and to help cool off the sweat she'd built up—the landlord had promised her that her shower would be fixed by tomorrow, but that was tomorrow.

She was standing in the living room reviewing her unit handbook and rental agreement when she heard male voices coming up the stairs. Her neighbors, probably; the landlord had told her two guys shared the other unit on this floor. Maybe she'd be able to talk them into letting her use _their_ shower. Of course, they might be gay, but even gay guys tended to like her. She was, after all, adorable. She smiled faintly, and turned slightly away so as to show herself off while still appearing engrossed in her manual.

Then the last thing in the world she'd expected happened. She _recognized_ one of the voices.

"New neighbour?— _Gllgk!_ "

Something hit the floor with a metallic rattle. Penny's smile fell into a gape of shock as her head snapped up, then around. Standing in the hallway over the ring of keys he'd clearly just dropped, looking just as poleaxed as she felt, with a bag of takeout in one hand and a tall, lanky guy standing next to him, was Leonard.

 _Holy crap on a cracker_.


	3. Chapter 3

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: A REBOOT HOMAGE

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. Much of the dialogue in this story is adapted directly from the 2007 pilot episode script by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The characters of Frank and Harry are owned by son-goku5.

\- 3 -

"Leonard," said the lanky guy, "this is hardly the area of my expertise, but I'm not sure staring at a woman silently is an appropriate form of introduction. I believe you're supposed to say 'Hello,' or 'Welcome to the building,' or other such meaningless social nicety?" When this failed to break through the shock on Leonard's face, or on Penny's, the lanky guy sighed, moved forward to her doorway, arranged his features into something resembling a smile—though to Penny it looked more like somebody restraining a bad case of gas—and nodded to her. "Good afternoon. Welcome to the building."

Penny stared at him, still trying to take it in. This was _Leonard's_ building? Leonard lived _here?_ Out of all the apartments for rent in the entire city of Pasadena, she had picked by sheer unimaginable fluke the one next to his? The one where Leonard lived with his— _Ah, right_. She smiled and stepped forward, putting her hand out. "Thank you. You must be—"

She'd been about to say _Sheldon_ , but stopped. Behind the lanky guy's shoulder, Leonard's eyebrows had shot up and he was shaking his head fiercely. The lessons of a year's worth of improv classes kicked in— _never block your partner_ —and before she quite realized it Penny had changed the sentence with only the barest of pauses. "—my new neighbours. Hi. I'm Penny."

"Dr. Sheldon Cooper, at your service," said the lanky guy, bowing slightly as he shook her hand. "For the record, I should clarify that 'at your service' is another one of those social niceties; please be aware that I in no way consider myself indentured to you beyond the immediate demands of protocol."

Penny blinked. "Huh?"

"Don't take that personally, that's just Sheldon's way of trying to pre-emptively get out of doing people favours," interrupted Leonard, shouldering his way past Sheldon. He shifted the takeout bag he held to his left hand and offered her his right with an apologetic grin. "Hi. I'm Leonard. Uh, Leonard Hofstadter."

 _That_ was it! "Hofstadter!" she burst out, slapping her forehead and making both guys jump. "I _knew_ I—" She caught herself again at Leonard's panicky look and Sheldon's confused one. "—thought you looked like a Hofstadter," she finished lamely. "The name just . . . fits, you know?"

Sheldon frowned. "No, I don't know. Insofar as anyone could reasonably guess Leonard's name from his physical appearance a Mediterranean name seems far likelier; to look like a typically Dutch Hofstadter, he'd have to be much blonder. Though probably not significantly taller," he added, and Leonard glanced skyward in exasperation. "You should refrain from such baseless assumptions about people in future, Penny. They're not likely to be nearly so accurate."

All of a sudden, Leonard being in the bar last night made a lot more sense. Penny managed a smile. "I'll keep that in mind, Sheldon. Thank you for the welcome, Leonard," she said, taking his hand. "Maybe we can have coffee sometime." Unseen by Sheldon, she caressed the back of his hand with her thumb, holding his eyes with her own.

Leonard went brick red. "Sure," he agreed, his voice cracking. "Yes. Coffee would be great. Uh, we'll talk to you soon." The look in his eyes, though, was as far from the supposedly casual words as could be imagined. Penny found herself flushing a little as well, in both her face and other areas farther south. She let him go, and he nodded, clearing his throat. "So, uh, goodbye. Sheldon, say goodbye."

"Goodbye," said Sheldon.

"Goodbye," said Leonard.

"Goodbye," said Penny.

"Goodbye," said Leonard again.

"Goodbye?" said Sheldon, looking bemused.

"Goodbye," repeated Leonard, panic visible in his eyes again.

Okay, the record was definitely skipping now. Penny decided to nudge it. "Goodbye," she said firmly, and shut the door. Dazed, she went to one of her boxes and sat down on it, wondering what to do next.

Among the many other quirks Penny remembered Leonard describing to her last night, Sheldon had apparently never learned the knack of tactfully lowering his voice either; it carried clearly through her door from the hallway outside. "You were never that friendly with the old neighbor, Leonard."

"Well, Penny's a significant improvement, isn't she?" That made her smile.

"Over a two-hundred-pound transvestite with a skin condition? Normally I'd agree, but Louis-slash-Louise seemed like a much more sensible person. And you were never distracted long enough to let our curry get cold, either," Sheldon said, his voice fading out near the end. A door closed.

Penny blew out a breath and massaged her face. For half a second she'd been annoyed that Leonard didn't want to admit to what they'd shared last night, but that decision was a lot more understandable now. Besides, it was kind of fun to have a secret. Unbidden, her lips curved up in a smile. And _what_ a secret. If last night had been any example of what one-night stands with Leonard were normally like, being his neighbor offered a _lot_ more potential for entertainment than her last residence did.

As if the thought had summoned him, a quick, furtive-sounding knock came at her door. Penny jumped up and hurried to answer it, a little surprised at herself, but she didn't have time to think about it before flinging the door open to reveal an apologetic-looking Leonard. Before he could say anything she hit him, hard, on the shoulder. "You _idiot!_ " she snapped, just barely remembering to keep her voice down. "Why didn't you put your number in my phone?!" She hit him again, as he cringed back.

"Penny, I'm really sorry, I—what?" He blinked.

"You forgot—to put your number—in my phone," she told him, biting the words off. "Do you have _any_ idea what it was like waking up today and realizing I didn't know how to find you again? Or that I didn't even really know who you _were?!_ "

"Wow." Leonard looked bemused. "That, that isn't at all what I expected you were going to be mad about."

"Oh, you mean going all cloak-and-dagger about last night? No, once I actually met your roommate that made a lot more sense. But don't change the subject." Penny folded her arms. "Did you just want to get rid of me? Was that it?"

"What?! No!" Leonard's jaw dropped. "How could you ever think that? I didn't put my number in your phone because I didn't have your _passcode—_ and I didn't know how you'd react if I asked you for it. You didn't know me. And lots of people keep confidential information on their phone."

"Oh." Penny blinked. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Still, you could have written it on the note!"

"Well, I . . . I didn't want to pressure you by looking like I _expected_ you to call. You knew my name, and I told you I worked at CalTech; I figured if you really wanted to find me that'd be enough—wasn't it?"

This brought Penny up short again. "Yes, you did, but . . . ." Finally, she gave a sheepish sigh. "I couldn't remember your last name. I'm _sorry!_ " she added at his flabbergasted look. "Okay? I only heard it once, and it's not that easy a name to remember when you're drunk. Besides—" she broke into a mischievous grin and leaned in close "—that wasn't what I was yelling at the top of my lungs for most of last night."

Leonard turned brick red again, but a tiny smile seemed to force its way out. "No, no it wasn't, was it?"

She hit him again, though much more lightly. "Hey. Get that smug look off your face, Dr. Hofstadter." She glanced over his shoulder as his apartment door opened. "Oh, crap. Sheldon's coming."

"Thanks. Um—" Leonard raised his voice to a distinctly artificial volume. "So, Penny, I'm aware moving can be stressful, and, uh, well, we just got Indian takeout," he gestured back at their door, "and I find that when I'm undergoing stress, good food and company has a tremendously comforting effect. Plus, curry is a natural laxative, and I don't have to tell you about the importance of . . . a clean colon?" He tried a smile. Penny just barely refrained from hitting herself in the forehead.

"Leonard, again, this is one of my few areas of non-expertise, but I believe that you might want to skip references to bowel movements in the context of a luncheon invitation," said Sheldon, who had arrived at Penny's door in time to hear the last words.

Penny decided to forestall further weirdness by cutting to the chase. "You're inviting me over to eat? That's so nice, I'd love to." She closed her door, following Leonard and Sheldon across the hall to theirs. "So what do you guys do for fun around here?"

"Well, today we tried masturbating for money," said Sheldon, without any hint of embarrassment or affect whatsoever. Leonard cringed into himself as if struck. Penny found herself clamping her lips together to avoid bursting into laughter. Yep, she _definitely_ understood why Leonard had wound up in that bar last night.

The guys' apartment was pretty much exactly what she'd expected in some ways—TV, desks with laptops, entertainment centre, at least three separate game consoles, and every shelf packed to overflowing with DVDs, video games, books, comics, models and action figures—and surprising in others: it was immaculately clean and organized, in a way that she didn't think she'd ever seen in any guys-only home anywhere. Between the living area and the kitchen sat a whiteboard on an easel, covered with equations and calculations that looked like nothing more than multicoloured pasta to her. Penny went to it, mouth open in amazement. "This looks like some serious stuff," she said. "Leonard, did you do this?"

"Actually that's my work," said Sheldon, with a pained-looking expression resembling a smile. He shrugged in an uncomfortable attempt at nonchalance. "It's just some quantum mechanics, with a little string theory doodling around the edges . . . ." His gaze followed hers to an offset part of the calculations in the lower corner of the board. "Uh, that part's just a joke. It's a spoof of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation."

To Penny it might as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphics. "Wow. You really _are_ like one of those 'Beautiful Mind' genius-type guys, aren't you? This is really impressive."

"Um—I have a board," said Leonard, sounding even more awkward than Sheldon looked. "If you like boards, this is my board . . . ." His had been tucked against the wall by a bookshelf, and was covered even more thickly than Sheldon's with equally incomprehensible scribbles. Penny gawped at it. Hearing about 170+ IQs in a bar last night was one thing; seeing the physical evidence of it was quite another.

"Holy smokes," she said, for lack of anything more coherent to contribute.

Sheldon scoffed. "If by 'holy smokes' you mean a derivative restatement of the kind of stuff you can find scribbled on the wall of any men's room at MIT, sure."

"What?!" said Leonard indignantly.

"Oh, come on. Who hasn't seen this differential below 'here I sit broken hearted'?"

"At least I didn't have to invent twenty-six dimensions just to make the math come out," Leonard snapped.

"I didn't _invent_ them, they're _there_."

"In what universe?!"

"In _all_ of them, that's the point!"

Penny had the unnerving feeling of treading water in a pool she'd suddenly discovered to be too deep for her swimming skills. Were these guys even speaking English? It _sounded_ like it, but she wasn't getting more than half of this. She sat down on the couch, trying to think of a way to divert the conversation before they left her behind completely. "Uh, do you guys mind if I start?" she asked, lifting the takeout bag.

Sheldon turned to look at her, then blinked. "Um, Penny—that's where I sit." He indicated the left end of the couch, which she currently occupied.

She smiled invitingly at him and patted the cushion beside her. "So sit next to me." She'd usually found this sort of thing made guys much more cooperative.

This time it didn't work. "No, I sit _there_ ," Sheldon insisted.

Penny blinked. "What's the difference?"

"What's the _difference?_ " Sheldon repeated incredulously.

"Here we go," Leonard muttered, going to the armchair.

"In the winter that seat is close enough to the radiator to remain warm, and yet not so close as to cause perspiration," Sheldon told her. "In the summer it's directly in the path of a cross breeze created by open windows there, and there." Reflexively, Penny found herself following his pointing finger. "It faces the television at an angle that is neither direct, thus discouraging conversation, nor so far wide as to create a parallax distortion—" He broke off, perhaps finally registering her expression. "I could go on, but I think I've made my point."

With some effort, Penny closed her mouth, which had fallen open. She had still thought, in some small part of her mind, that Leonard might have been exaggerating. "Do you want me to move?"

"Well . . . ."

"Just sit somewhere else," Leonard ordered him. Sheldon muttered an aggravated concession and began circling the apartment, rejecting place after place until Leonard lost his patience. "Sheldon, _sit!_ " he barked, and Sheldon plopped onto the other end of the couch. Valiantly, he tried to look as if he was perfectly comfortable.

Leonard cleared his throat and smiled at Penny, clearly trying to restore whatever passed for normal amicability in the apartment. "Well, this is nice," he said. "We don't have a lot of company over."

"That's not true," Sheldon piped up. "Koothrappali and Wolowitz come over all the time."

"Yes, I know, but…"

"Tuesday night we played Klingon Boggle until one in the morning." Klingon Boggle?

"Yes, I remember," said Leonard, looking pained.

"I resent you saying we don't have company."

"I'm sorry."

"That is an antisocial implication."

"I _said_ I'm sorry." Leonard was turning red, whether from anger, embarrassment or both Penny couldn't tell. She decided to redirect the conversation again before he exploded, and asked the first question she could think of.

"So, Klingon Boggle?"

Leonard didn't look much less embarrassed having to explain the term. "Yeah, it's like regular Boggle but . . . in Klingon." Hurriedly he added, "That's probably enough about us. Tell us about you!"

Penny clapped her hands together, finally feeling like she was back on familiar ground. She'd never had any problem talking about herself. "Um, me, okay, I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know—"

"Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the Sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality," said Sheldon.

Penny blinked. "Participate in the what?"

"I think what Sheldon's trying to say is," Leonard intervened, "Sagittarius wouldn't have been our first guess." He smiled apologetically, which was about the only thing that kept her from losing her temper. Sheldon's verbose phrasing might have blown past her on first hearing, but she'd endured enough scoffing about astrology to recognize it by tone, if nothing else.

Intuition told her, however, that Sheldon would find it more unpleasant to be simply ignored than challenged, so she simply said, "Oh yeah," with blithe indifference. "A lot of people think I'm a water sign." She was rewarded by the subliminal tightening of Sheldon's mouth, and smugly congratulated herself. This guy might be ten times as smart as her in some ways, but he wasn't that mysterious when you came down to it.

She confined herself to typical introductory small talk after that. Some of it she'd told Leonard last night, but she dutifully played out revealing it again as if they were meeting for the first time, which turned out to be an oddly enjoyable acting exercise—it felt kind of like being a secret agent, infiltrating a community with the help of an allied mole. Some of it, like the screenplay she was working on, was genuine news to both the guys, although Leonard looked more impressed than Sheldon. Some things, like Leonard's dietary problems (he was lactose-intolerant _and_ couldn't process corn? Really?), were news to her, and made her belatedly glad she hadn't suggested anything with Bailey's Irish Cream in it last night. Finally, she got around to mentioning that her shower was broken, and with almost immediate reflex, Leonard did exactly what she'd half-hoped he would: "Our shower works," he volunteered.

"Really? Would it be totally weird if I used it?"

"Yes," said Sheldon instantly, half a heartbeat ahead of Leonard's "No." Sheldon looked at Leonard incredulously and repeated, "No?" which got an emphatic "No," and Sheldon cringed and offered a strained final "No." Penny worked hard to keep from smiling; it was like watching a smart but half-trained dog and his owner. "It's right down the hall," Leonard finished, pointing the way.

"Thanks," she said sincerely. "You guys are really sweet." But she gave Leonard a direct look and a very slight wink, doing her best to indicate which guy in particular she found especially sweet. From Leonard's blush, it worked. She had to repress an urge to grin as she went down the hall and found the bathroom. Not that it wasn't true, after all; she suspected Leonard would have gladly offered the shower, even if they'd only just met now.

Then, as she closed and locked the door, her grin faltered. She normally had no problem letting guys do things for her because she was cute, as long as she was sure in her own mind it had nothing to do with whether she chose to sleep with them or not—a point she'd occasionally had to make Nebraska groin-kick style to some more piggish-minded guys. But she really didn't want Leonard to think she was the sort of girl who _did_ put out in exchange for such things, especially given how much he'd already done for her . . . and more worryingly, she didn't want to think of _herself_ as that kind of girl, either; her rotten feelings this morning had been proof enough of that. After all, hadn't Harry the bartender jumped to exactly the same conclusion last night? And hadn't she admitted to herself that she understood why? Considerably more subdued, she finished taking her clothes off, thinking back over her life and, for the first time, not much liking how some of it looked in hindsight.

Her unwonted quiet made the voices from the living room more audible, especially when Sheldon raised his voice in what sounded like a direct demand. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"

"Excuse me?" Leonard said. Penny paused, listening.

"That woman in there isn't going to have sex with you just because you let her use our shower."

Penny pressed her hands to her mouth, suddenly overcome with giggles. _Oh, isn't she?_ she thought, and for the first time consciously admitted what she'd known pretty much since waking up that morning: she would gladly jump Leonard again at the earliest opportunity, and had every intention of doing so.

"I'm not trying to buy sex with showers, Sheldon," said Leonard, sounding genuinely offended.

"Good. Then you won't be disappointed."

"What makes you think she wouldn't have sex with me?" A reasonable question, Penny thought, given they already had. "I'm a male, she's a female."

"Yes, but not of the same species." Penny's jaw dropped. And Leonard called this guy his _friend?_

"Look, I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals here," said Leonard. "I'm just trying to be a good neighbor. That's not to say that if a carnal relationship _were_ to develop, I wouldn't participate." He muttered something else she couldn't quite hear through the closed door, but it sounded like it might be, " _however briefly_." Penny's heart twisted. Wow. Poor Leonard; he really did have self-esteem issues, didn't he?

"Do you think this possibility will be helped or hindered when she discovers your _Star Wars_ No-More-Tears shampoo and conditioner?" said Sheldon, sounding curious. Penny blinked and looked in the shower, remembering why she'd come in here. Yup, there it was: Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, a matched shampoo and conditioner set. She smiled. Well, it might have put her off if she hadn't known anything else about him, but as far as she was concerned, anybody who could do what Leonard had done to her last night was man enough to afford a bit of little-boy indulgence now and then. Abandoning her eavesdropping, she stepped into the shower.

It might have been thinking about last night which did it, or her conscious admission that she both wanted and intended to jump Leonard again, but the sound of the curtain rattling closed brought back the memories of her last shower with a sudden, unexpected ferocity: her pelvis against Leonard's face, her head falling backwards as she shouted her ecstasy at the ceiling, and then her back against his chest as his delicate fingers worked magic in her core under the hot water, having to clench her arm with all her strength to hang onto him as her body erupted in pleasure and her legs turned to spaghetti. And the man who'd done all that was no more than twenty feet away, just outside the door . . . . Abruptly a little weak in the knees, Penny shook her head, massaged her face and began mentally counting times tables. She didn't have time for that right now. She leant over, turned on the water, adjusted it to the temperature she liked and then tried to switch from tub to shower. The switch wouldn't catch. She frowned, tried again, then again. Nothing.

Annoyed, she turned the water off, stepped back out, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself, then went back out to the living room. "Hey, is there a trick to getting it to switch from tub to shower—?" she began, then stopped. Two more people had arrived in the apartment: one was a wiry, Jewish-looking guy with a bowl haircut, even shorter than Leonard, in a red shirt, turtleneck and ridiculously tight jeans; the other was a handsome dark-eyed Indian guy in a blue windbreaker, a baseball cap and a sweater vest. Both were gaping at her in amazement, though the Indian guy looked more discomfited while the Jewish guy's hungry gaze seemed positively skeevy.

"Oh. Hi, sorry. Hello," she said, sheepishly smiling and wishing for a bathrobe.

" _Enchanté, Mademoiselle_ ," said the short guy, with a bow and a flourish. Leonard rolled his eyes. "Howard Wolowitz, CalTech Department of Applied Physics." He leaned casually on the wall, as if that would somehow make him look taller. "You may be familiar with some of my work; it's currently orbiting Jupiter's largest moon taking high-resolution digital photographs."

Well, no self-esteem issues for _this_ guy. "Penny," said Penny. "I work at the Cheesecake Factory." Though saying that aloud made her think uncomfortably about _her_ self-esteem.

"Come on," said Leonard, stepping in. "I'll show you the trick with the shower." He moved past her and headed back towards the bathroom; she followed gratefully.

" _Bon douche!_ " said Howard.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's French for 'good shower'. It's a sentiment I can express in six languages."

"Save it for your blog, Howard," Leonard told him. When Howard called something after them in Chinese—presumably the same expression—Leonard cringed again as if punched. Penny sympathized. She had friends who embarrassed her too.

* * *

In the bathroom, Leonard fiddled with the tap controls. "This sometimes takes a second or two, it sticks," he muttered over his shoulder. He paused, frowning at the tap, and suddenly remembered the last shower he'd taken, an experience that felt in some ways like the first shower he'd _ever_ taken: Penny's curves, pressed against him from head to foot; the taste of her as he devoured her like a starving man, and the triumph of hearing her shriek her pleasure above him; the feel of her most secret inner flesh under his fingers, offered up willingly to let him send her off to ecstasy once again . . . .

"Something wrong?" said Penny.

Leonard started, blushing fiercely. "Uh, nothing, nothing," he said, and resumed work, wondering if perhaps she hadn't sounded just a little too innocently amused. This time he exerted all his concentration and kept his mind on its task: at last, the switch caught, and hot water streamed down from the showerhead. Penny jumped in delight and applauded. Without pausing, she whipped off the towel and stepped past him just as he got up.

He caught the barest fleeting glimpse of her glorious body before sheer reflex drove him instantly around, averting his eyes as his blush burnt even hotter. It made no sense, but somehow seeing her nude in his own bathroom, with Sheldon, Howard and Raj just outside, felt far more presumptuous than anything that had happened last night. The motel room had been like some fantastic, alcohol-lubricated dreamworld where anything was possible, everything was permitted and nothing was quite real; this was his own, dull, daily, sober, regular mundane life, and acting as if he had a right to her intimacy as part of it just felt wrong.

Penny, it seemed, didn't share any such qualms. "Leonard?" she inquired, and Leonard opened his eyes to see her peering around the curtain at him. "What's with the modesty? Did you think I'd have a problem with you seeing me naked again? Because believe me, I don't." She grinned and ducked back into the shower. "I love the Darth Vader shampoo, by the way," she added over the noise of the water.

He swallowed, managing a smile, though his embarrassed flush hadn't eased. "Well, you know, I didn't want to presume—I mean, I'm glad to know there's no problem, but still. You know how it is," he went on, aware he was dangerously close to babbling but not able to think of a graceful way to stop. "Sometimes, people are like, 'Oh, well, last night was last night, let's not make more of it than it was,' no matter how—" He had to gulp as memory crashed over him again. "—how awesome it was . . . or how much you'd love to do it again, like, right now—" His voice had dropped to a mumble, and finally he had to draw in a shuddery breath. He couldn't stop wondering what would happen if he just took off his clothes and jumped in after Penny.

"Um . . . actually, Leonard—" Behind the curtain, Penny cleared her throat with what sounded like unusual vigour. Leonard blinked. Could it be, just possibly, that he wasn't the only one struggling with overheated flashbacks? "I hate to do this to you," she went on, "but there is just one more, like, teensy- _tiny_ little favour you could do for me, if you felt like it . . . ."

"Really? 'If I felt like it'?" Leonard couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Exactly what do you think the odds are I'm going to say 'no', after remembering everything you just reminded me of? Every move, every touch . . . ." He found himself staring at the shower curtain as if hypnotized, watching the memories play out upon it. Penny's silhouette had stopped moving. "Every kiss . . . stroke . . . sound . . . taste—"

"Oh for God's sake, Leonard, just say yes or no already, okay?" Penny's interruption was startlingly brusque. At the same time, her silhouette gave a head-to-foot shudder, and suddenly it seemed not only possible, but eminently plausible that she, too, was battling certain urges. Surprise, delight and hope burst in Leonard's breast, leavened by more than a little exasperation with himself; who was he fooling? Even if he'd only just met Penny, he knew what his answer would probably have been to anything she asked.

"All right, all right," he said, giving in. "What's the favour?"

"Well, when I walked out on Kurt yesterday I didn't have time to grab everything I wanted, so I ended up leaving behind not only my TV, but some cash I'd gotten out to cover the rent. I'd go back now myself, but I have to wait for the telephone and cable guys to come in and set me up. That cop last night, he said they keep their drunk and disorderlies in for twenty-four hours, right?"

"Yeah, that's right, he—" Comprehension dawned. "Oh, no," Leonard groaned.

He could hear the grin in her voice. "Ah, the 'penny' drops, right, sweetie?" Penny stuck her head back around the curtain, meeting Leonard's disbelieving expression with a smile. "Listen, Kurt's still going to be in jail for another couple of hours; all I need is somebody just to take my key, go over there, get the stuff and bring it back. No biggie."

"And if he comes back early and catches me there? Engaged in carrying out what for all intents and purposes is gonna look like a robbery?" Leonard glared at her.

Penny raised her eyebrows hopefully. "Convince him you're only getting what doesn't belong to him anyway? Come on, you're like ten times as smart as he is." She tilted her head and gave a moue of pitifulness. "Pleeeeease, Leonard?"

Leonard lifted his hands, exasperated and dismayed in equal measure. "Look, Penny, I'm sorry; I really _want_ to help you, but come on. If Kurt catches me in his place he'll do his level best to break every bone in my body, you know that! Do you really want me to run that risk for a TV set?"

Penny frowned. "Okay, well, the TV I can do without, but could you at least try to get the rent cash? Seriously, Leonard, I had like eighteen hundred dollars in there, and I need that. It's in a drawer in our—his—bedroom."

"Oh, God." Leonard shook his head. "You really know how to make things difficult, don't you. Look, if I could get Frank to come with me and help that would be different, but I can't pull him away from his day job for this, and if Kurt comes home at the wrong time, I'm a dead man. If I were you I'd just call the police."

Penny bit her lip. For all his very real misgivings, Leonard found himself unable to take his eyes off that lower lip, or from the flash of those small, perfect white teeth. Then, suddenly, she smiled. "Tell you what," she said, her eyes glinting. "Can you set a timer on your phone?"

Leonard blinked. "Um, sure. Why?"

"'Cause I bet I can get you to change your mind in no more than thirty seconds." She waved at him. "Go ahead, set it up. Thirty seconds, tell me when it's running. If you can still say no after it beeps, I'll stop asking."

Leonard sighed, pulled out his phone, tapped the appropriate commands and then held it up to show the number counting down—0:30, 0:29, 0:28. "Okay, fine, we're rolling. Now what are you—"

He stopped, the breath audibly locking in his throat, as Penny stepped out of the shower in a long, sinuous movement and stretched her arms up high, lifting her breasts. Water dripped off her arms, her hips, and her nipples, which she had evidently tweaked into erection during his moment of distraction. With a roll to her hips that had to be deliberate, she sauntered towards him, never taking her eyes from his, tilting her head forward to look up at him through her lashes. On each step she bounced slightly, giving her breasts just enough agitation to remind him of all the much more vigorous movements of last night.

Coming up to him, she brought her body almost but not quite into contact with his, and took his free hand to slide it around her waist and down to her backside. She slid her other hand up his cheek into his hair, brought his face forward, and rubbed her nose lightly against his, moving her face around to give their lips the most tantalizingly faint hint of contact while never locking in for a solid kiss. He could feel her breath on his mouth, his own more and more unsteady by the second. Twice, he tried to move forward to bring their lips together, and each time she pulled back just enough to thwart him without breaking the flickering contact. The hand she had placed on her behind was moving seemingly of its own accord, squeezing and massaging that firm, perfect muscle; he could hear the effect in her own increasingly rapid breathing, and the ache that had erupted in his groin was clawing its way up through his brain to the point where he was just about ready to forget that Sheldon, Howard and Raj were all outside, within easy hearing distance—

 _Beep-Beep-Beep!_ The jolt of startled adrenaline snapped them both back to clarity. Leonard almost dropped his phone, and Penny stepped back quickly, breaking contact. She folded her arms across her breasts, turned half-away from him and swiveled her hips to complete the turn, concealing everything without donning a single piece of clothing. "Well?" she said, dropping her chin again to look up through her eyelashes and pushing her lips out in a kittenish, unbelievably sexy pout.

Leonard stared at her. Then he threw his hands up in the air, spun on one heel and opened the bathroom door. " _Sheldon!_ " he called. "We've got an errand to run!" He glared back at her in something that mixed exasperation and lust, but as their eyes met, she flushed; it was clearly tilting towards lust for them both. "What's the address?"

She told him, then nodded to her discarded shorts on the floor. "My key's in the front pocket." She ducked back into the shower as he got her key, then stuck her head out around the curtain again. "Honestly, Leonard, I really cannot tell you how grateful I am for this."

"Yeah, yeah," muttered Leonard, lust now tilting firmly back towards exasperation, with himself this time. God, his mother had been right; he really _was_ a victim of his own baser urges, wasn't he?

"But . . . ." Penny's voice dropped almost an octave, taking on a husky, meaningful tone that snapped his head back up. "I'd be more than willing to _show_ you how grateful I am," she went on, not taking her eyes from his, "if you felt like coming by later . . . ." She gave him her cat's smile again.

Leonard gulped loudly enough it was audible over the noise of the shower.


	4. Chapter 4

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: A REBOOT HOMAGE

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. Much of the dialogue in this story is adapted directly from the 2007 pilot episode script by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The characters of Frank and Harry are owned by son-goku5.

\- 4 -

"I really think we should examine the chain of causality here," said Sheldon, halfway across Pasadena in the passenger seat of Leonard's car.

"Must we?" Leonard grumbled, trying to concentrate on the road.

"Event A," said Sheldon, ignoring Leonard's question. "A strange woman uses our shower. Event B: We drive halfway across town to retrieve a television set from the aforementioned woman's ex-boyfriend. Query: On what plane of existence is there even a semi-rational link between these events?"

The answer to that was simple— _the plane on which, last night, said woman and I had what was, with complete literal accuracy, the absolute best sex of my life, and on which she more or less promised a repeat performance if I can pull this off_ —but sadly Sheldon was the one person on earth who would neither understand nor accept how that had shifted Leonard's priorities. "She asked me to do her a favour, Sheldon."

"Ah, yes, well that may be the proximal cause of our journey, but we both know it only exists in contradistinction to the higher-level distal cause, that being: You think with your penis."

This, unfortunately, Leonard could not deny with any kind of clear conscience. An even more ruthless part of his conscience pointed out that he would most likely have agreed to this favour even if they'd only just met Penny. "That's a biological impossibility," he said defensively. "And you didn't _have_ to come."

"Oh, right, yes, I could have stayed behind and watched Wolowitz try to hit on Penny in Russian, Arabic and Farsi," said Sheldon, deep disgust in his voice. "Why can't she get her own TV?"

"Because she's stuck waiting for the phone and cable guys, like you always are when you move in somewhere," Leonard repeated with heavy patience. "Look, Sheldon, think of it like a NASA mission: There's a one-time only launch window here to successfully accomplish this retrieval operation. It's going to take our initiative, cleverness, and crackerjack timing to get in and out before that window closes, and if we have to scrub, it'll be a tragic and ruinous waste of our taxpaying neighbor's funds." He held up one finger theatrically and lowered his voice into his best dramatic-movie-trailer-voiceover tone. "Nobody else can pull this mission off. It's up to _us._ "

Sheldon mulled that over. "Hmm. Well, I do enjoy viewing my life through the lens of astronautical imagery. But I continue to be puzzled why it's so vital to get this TV back _before_ Penny's ex returns. Can't we just ask him?"

 _Considering I was the ultimate cause of him getting beaten up and arrested, after he saw his ex-girlfriend flirting with me—not to mention his temper, his size and his basic asshole nature—probably not._ But Sheldon wouldn't accept any of that with any equanimity either. "Come on, you know how it is with break-ups," he said instead.

"No I don't," Sheldon objected, accurately enough. "And neither do you."

"Wha—?! I broke up with Joyce Kim!"

"You did not break up with Joyce Kim. She escaped to North Korea before the FBI could arrest her for espionage."

" _And_ to leave behind her _broken heart_ ," Leonard insisted, though more for form than sincerity. With part of his mind, he realized something that really shouldn't have been as surprising as it was: The ache he always got whenever he remembered Joyce's betrayal had only faded a little in all the years since, but it had diminished _amazingly_ since last night. He suspected he knew exactly why that was but tried not to think about it. "This situation is much less complicated. Penny just wants to avoid having a scene with her ex."

"So _we_ get to have a scene with him?" said Sheldon.

"No, Sheldon, there's not going to be a scene!" Leonard exploded, finally losing his patience (and gladly covering his own nerves with his irritation). "He's not even going to be there, he's still going to be in the drunk tank downtown, and I've got the key. All we need to do is get in, grab the TV and an envelope of cash, and get out. Done."

"'Grab the T—'? Leonard, the two of us can't even _carry_ a TV!"

"That's why I brought the building's cargo dolly," countered Leonard, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "Look, again, if you don't want to come, I can drop you off here and you can catch the bus back home. You're even still wearing your bus pants."

"Oh, Leonard, you know I can't do that. You're my best friend, and the roommate agreement requires us to support each other when help is requested." Sheldon folded his arms and slouched down in his seat. "Though I fully intend to bring up an amendment at the next general apartment meeting which excludes any requests resulting solely from the pursuit of coitus," he added.

For Sheldon, that was practically equivalent to _I got your back, buddy; bring it on._ "Noted," said Leonard, feeling absurdly warm inside.

The warmth vanished with Sheldon's next comment. "I mean, seriously, Leonard, have you considered chemical castration? Because it really seems like it might help you focus your energies more productively."

* * *

Penny's old place was an apartment building on the west side of town. Combined 360 IQ notwithstanding, Leonard and Sheldon still found themselves thwarted by the front door when they realized Penny had forgotten to give Leonard the building's entry code. Thankfully, a couple of cookie-selling Girl Scouts had overcome that obstacle for them by simply buzzing every button on the intercom at once, on the (directly verifiable, as it turned out) hypothesis that at least one person would be statistically likely to let them in without bothering to check. "What do you think _their_ combined IQ is?" Sheldon had grumbled, as they caught the open door and slipped in behind the girls.

At the door of unit #405, Leonard paused. He had confidently reassured Sheldon that Kurt couldn't possibly be out of the drunk tank yet . . . but that was, he knew, something of an exaggeration. If somebody had bailed Kurt out, or a shift-change replacement didn't notice or care about Rick's and Dana's instructions to leave him there for the twenty-four-hour maximum, it _was_ possible he might already be home. He gulped, squared his shoulders, then rapped firmly on the door. A minute passed with no answer. Leonard knocked again, more loudly. When there was still no answer he let out a sigh of relief and tried the key Penny had given him. The lock disengaged and the door swung back.

"We're in," he whispered to Sheldon, feeling an urge to start humming the _Mission: Impossible_ theme.

Sheldon looked at him with a frown. "No, we're not," he said, and stepped past Leonard into the apartment's vestibule. Impatiently he beckoned. Leonard sighed and followed, pulling the dolly with him, and the moment he was over the threshold Sheldon nodded. "Okay. _Now_ we're in." Then he turned and took in the apartment; his jaw dropped, and he went pale. "And I would very much like to be out."

For once, Leonard couldn't disagree. He wasn't as compulsive about it as Sheldon, but he _had_ grown up in a highly controlled and organized environment, and had had the habits of tidiness and cleanliness beaten into him from a young age. The man who lived here . . . clearly had not. Unlaundered clothes had been tossed everywhere; an unfolded pile of what seemed to be slightly cleaner laundry rose up nearly four feet high on one end of the couch. A set of dirty dishes sat on the coffee table in front of the TV; more were in the kitchen sink and on the counter, which was visible through an open folding door, and half-empty glasses and mugs dotted the bookshelves, which had far fewer books in them than Leonard could have imagined ever settling for. A case of beer bottles sat by the side of the couch, more than half of them empty. Videotapes and DVDs were scattered over the couch and the floor, and stacked up out of their sleeves on the TV cabinet. The only area of the apartment which seemed like anyone had put any effort at all into maintaining it was one corner of the living room, in which a weight bench and a motorized treadmill sat side by side: the weights were rigorously organized and stored, and both bench and treadmill were clean and absolutely free of dust. A poster in front of the workout area showed a shirtless, grotesquely muscular man pointing at the viewer with a glare; it was captioned GET OFF YOUR ASS AND _WORK!_ The entire place smelt of stale sweat and old food.

"Leonard," said Sheldon, sounding ill, "if this is the kind of living standard Penny's bringing to our building, I'm seriously thinking a call to the CDC is in order before we allow her to stay."

"We are not calling the CDC on Penny," Leonard muttered, not quite as firmly as he'd intended. "And for all we know, one reason Penny left this guy might have been because she couldn't live with the mess anymore." Which might even be true, Leonard thought . . . although it didn't bode well that it hadn't even occurred to Penny to _mention_ the mess as a warning. If she was indeed as untidy a person as this apartment hinted, it would only give Sheldon another reason to object in principle to Penny's presence in their lives. He nodded towards the bedroom door. "Penny said the cash was in a drawer in the bedroom, in an envelope. You go in and look for that."

Sheldon's eyes bulged in horror. "You want me to go sticking my hands in _other people's underwear?_ Even worse, _these_ people's underwear?!"

Leonard spread his hands. "Would you rather help me unplug the TV and lift it onto the dolly?"

Sheldon blinked, his expression somewhere between betrayed and confused. "I'm in Hell," he mumbled. "We died in the car on the way over here, and I'm in Hell." He took a deep breath, covered his nose and mouth with his hand to form an impromptu surgical mask and marched into the bedroom. Leonard shook his head and went to the TV cabinet, kicking a few T-shirts out of his way.

One pleasant surprise awaited him: no doubt thanks in part to Kurt's ridiculously muscled arms, the TV and the cabinet had been positioned to leave lots of room for access to the power and connection cords, and Leonard was able to reach everything easily. Within minutes he had all the cables disconnected, rolled up and ready to move. The TV itself, unfortunately, proved a great deal heavier than he'd expected—it was an old vacuum-tube model rather than one of the newer flat screens—and Leonard decided not to try lifting the big bulky thing down onto the cargo dolly by himself. He went to the bedroom. "How you doing, Sheldon?"

" _Aaahhh!_ " Startled by Leonard's voice, Sheldon jumped like a dissected frog hit with electrical shock; this would have been less painful for him if he hadn't been wedged almost completely inside an emptied-out bureau, trying to knock the last drawer in the cabinet free. He slithered out of the bureau, stood, and rubbed his head with a wince as he used his other hand to brush himself down. "Leonard, the health risks I'm taking here are not worth any putative benefit of any conceivable coitus, I must inform you."

Leonard gaped wordlessly at the bedroom. With his usual predilection for organization, Sheldon had chosen to expedite his search by simply sliding all the drawers out of both clothes bureaus and arranging them all on the bed. Leonard knotted his hands in his hair. "Sheldon—guh—why—nggh—why couldn't you have just _looked_ in them, one by one?!" he finally sputtered.

"Because this makes it a lot quicker, easier, and most importantly, more sanitary," said Sheldon. "'Scuse me—" He dashed past Leonard to the kitchen and returned brandishing a spatula. "This, at least," he informed Leonard, "was clean. First thing I've seen in this place which is, probably because nobody's ever used it." He bent over the first drawer and, using the spatula, stirred his way through the clothes with a series of quick, efficient strokes. "Okay, nothing in here but socks. Next drawer—"

Leonard groaned through his teeth and went to the other side of the rows of drawers, starting from that end and sifting through them. He had to admit this did make things faster. Within a minute, in a drawer full of tattered and threadbare (and disquietingly discoloured) briefs, Sheldon's spatula unearthed a thick white unmarked envelope. With a muttered "Aha!" Leonard snatched it, flipped it open and looked through it, quickly counting the bills: yep, eighteen hundred dollars. He tucked the envelope in his inside jacket pocket. "Mission accomplished. Let's go."

"Wwwwwait," said Sheldon, lifting one hand. In disbelief, Leonard watched as Sheldon grabbed one of the drawers and began slotting it back into place. He gave Leonard a meaningful look and jerked his head at the bed. "Leonard, unless you're particularly interested in making this man think he's been robbed, it seems like a really good idea to leave as little trace of our presence as possible."

That was, unfortunately, true. Leonard bit his lip. "Good point." He grabbed up a drawer, hurried to the empty bureau, and was about to slide it in when Sheldon hissed in warning, shook his head and pointed at a different slot. Leonard only barely kept from throwing the drawer at him. "It doesn't _matter_ if we get it _right_ , Sheldon, we just have to get out of here as fast as we can!"

Sheldon looked alarmed. "You said we had time!"

"And we do! I . . . just . . . don't know how much. For certain." Leonard twisted and shoved the drawer he held back into a slot in the bureau. "So in this particular situation speed takes priority over accuracy, clear?"

"This kind of vagueness about mission parameters would have gotten you turfed from NASA years ago," Sheldon muttered. Abandoning organization, they shoved the drawers back into random slots and hastened out to the living room. Sheldon got on one side of the TV, Leonard on the other, and they braced themselves to lift when they heard the worst sound in the world: keys rattled in the lock of the front door. They froze.

The door swung open and two figures lurched in, wrapped around each other, kissing and groping one another with the kind of frenzy Leonard wouldn't normally have believed ever really happened outside a Hollywood soundstage —though in the wake of his night with Penny he was willing to reevaluate that assessment. He and Sheldon exchanged one terrified glance, then with simultaneous lightning-fast speed dove to the floor just below the couch, out of the figures' sightline. Leonard held his breath, frozen absolutely still, as the newcomers stumbled over the floor and then— _oh God, no no no please no_ —thudded down on the couch itself. The muffled grunts, groans and moans of the couple rang in his ears like an oncoming train.

He glanced up. He couldn't see the newcomers' faces, but the size of the arm that moved in and out over the edge of the cushions confirmed his fear: That had to be Kurt. He'd recognize that bicep anywhere. The other person he didn't know, but from the high pitch of the moaning and exhortations, he was willing to bet it was the girl Penny had told him she'd caught Kurt with yesterday—maybe she was the one who'd bailed him out. He caught Sheldon's eye and pointed at him, then indicated a path around the far end of the couch. Sheldon nodded and began easing himself backwards as quietly as he could while staying plastered to the carpet; as he moved, he glanced down at the rug and his face contorted in a tragic mix of disgust, fear, and sorrow. Leonard couldn't half blame him. The carpet felt like nobody had vacuumed or cleaned it in months.

They managed to sneak around behind the couch just as the inevitable happened: Kurt and the girl fell off its front side, both so far gone that after the initial cries of pain the girl simply laughed in her throat and they both kept going. Concealed behind the back of the couch, Sheldon mouthed at Leonard, _What do we do now?_ Leonard shrugged helplessly. Then Sheldon froze as a lacy black brassiere came lofting over the couch and landed right on his head. Leonard felt horribly torn between hysterical laughter and terrified sympathy at Sheldon's grimace.

He twisted to look back at the front door. If they made a sudden dash, they might get out the door before Kurt caught them . . . but—oh, _shit_ : the cargo dolly! He'd left it in front of the TV and it was only sheer blind luck Kurt had been too preoccupied to notice it. Leonard closed his eyes, bracing himself for the startled, outraged exclamation of _What the fuck is_ that _doing there?!_ which surely had to happen any second now . . . .

But God chose to smile on them. "Baby—baby, wait," the girl gasped. "I don't want rugburn today. Let's take this into the bedroom." With a scramble, the couple got up and both hurried to the bedroom door, still wrapped up in each other, straight past the cargo dolly without a glance. There was a thump of bodies hitting the mattress within; then, after a moment, there came a delightedly obscene affirmative shout from the girl and the steady, rocking rhythm of creaking bedsprings. Sheldon looked almost as revolted at the sounds as he had at the bra and the carpet.

" _Now_ can we get out of here?" he hissed at Leonard, swiping the bra off his head.

The noise coming from the bedroom, however, had reminded Leonard of some memories of his own. Suddenly the terror of a moment ago seemed much less relevant. "Wait—let's get the TV first!"

"Have you absolutely lost your _mind?_ " It sounded like it wanted to be a shriek, if Sheldon hadn't kept his voice to a terrified whisper. "Move it yourself, I'm not staying!" He started for the door.

Leonard grabbed Sheldon's arm to stop him. Inwardly he writhed in guilt, but the rest of him was too determined: he had promised Penny he would do this, and he really, _really_ wanted the second chance he hoped this would get him. "Sheldon," he hissed, "if you don't help me I'm going to shout at the top of my lungs and get us _both_ beaten up. And arrested, probably."

Sheldon stopped dead still, looking betrayed. "You wouldn't."

Leonard only met his gaze steadily. The air crackled, the only sounds the ever-rising, ever-louder moans, shouts and obscene encouragements from the bedroom. The creaking of the bedsprings grew faster and faster. Then, deliberately, Leonard drew in a deep breath and opened his mouth.

Sheldon's nerve broke. "All _right!_ " he hissed, throwing up his hands. "Come on, hurry, _hurry!_ " He dashed to one side of the TV, Leonard to the other. Together, they heaved, got the television off the shelf, and lowered it gingerly onto the dolly, both of them red-faced and straining in the effort to set it down silently. Finally it touched down, and Sheldon relaxed . . . with a loud gasp.

He looked horrified and covered his mouth; Leonard cringed. But the gasp had coincided with a yell of triumph from the bedroom, and gone unheard. Both slumped in relief.

The creaking bedsprings kept going. The girl's voice took on a note of surprise and delight. "Oh, god, baby, you aren't done yet?" Trying to ignore the heated flush in his own face, Leonard turned the dolly and began hauling it and the TV out of the apartment, navigating it towards the door. As he pushed the dolly from the other end, Sheldon glared over his shoulder at the sounds continuing to emanate from the bedroom. "Oh god, yeah, baby, baby, just like that!" the girl caroled. "Oh, shit, you're gonna get me again—oh, baby, you do me _so good_ —"

And that, of all things, was what finally made Sheldon snap. "Good _God_ , people, learn some _grammar!_ It's 'You do me so _well!_ '" he burst out. Then he clapped both hands to his mouth, eyes wide.

The girl screamed in fright and shock; Kurt yelled in wordless fury; a second later the sound of a scrambling struggle cut off in a yelp and a tremendous double _thud_ as two bodies hit the floor—evidently Kurt had tried to jump free and failed to disentangle himself in time _._ Abandoning stealth, Leonard hauled on the dolly as hard as he could, thundering towards the door. Kurt burst out of the bedroom, stark naked, charging at them with murder clearly evident in his blazing, maddened eyes.

Sheldon lunged for the couch and swept the huge pile of laundry into the air, hurling it at Kurt in a storm of flying towels, shirts, jeans, socks and underwear. Kurt's yell was muffled by a towel flapping into his face; he stumbled, trying to rip it away while still running, and his legs tangled in a pair of jeans. With a roar of rage, he fell. His head met the floor face-first with a sickening _whomp_ and his roar cut off into a deep, agonized groan, his limbs flailing weakly. Leonard stared, mouth open in amazement. Sheldon whirled, yelled, " _Run!_ " and bolted straight past Leonard out the door.

Annoying as his roommate often was, Leonard had to admit that when Sheldon was right, he was right, and should be listened to. He ran, hauling the TV-laden dolly behind him, and caught up to Sheldon at the elevator. The door whirred open; the two of them wheeled the dolly in and hit the CLOSE button. The sound of their panting and gasping filled the elevator's silence, gradually slowing as the elevator descended.

"How fast do you think he'll recover?" Leonard eventually asked.

Sheldon frowned, his breathing still rapid. "Given his estimated mass, the speed and force of his fall, the padding of the towel, the elasticity of the carpet and the average male recovery time from concussive skull impact, my final estimate would be . . . that you're a goldarned lunatic, Leonard." He glared at Leonard. "And I trust you are aware that I don't use 'goldarned' lightly."

"I know. I know. Believe me, Sheldon, I am fully aware of how much I owe you for this."

"Oh, no, Leonard, I don't believe you are," said Sheldon loftily, folding his arms. "And there _will_ be a discussion about this at the next apartment meeting." Leonard winced internally, but couldn't feel as bad about that as he normally would have.

With a _ding_ , the elevator arrived at ground level, and the two of them shoved the dolly out of the car and headed for the front door at top speed. By the time they'd gotten out the door, through the parking lot and up to Leonard's car, both were red and sweaty again, and wrestling the TV into the trunk took the last of their strength. Sheldon gave Leonard another glare as they got into the car and Leonard started the engine. "If you were so determined to help this woman out in the name of building up goodwill for future potential coitus," he demanded between gasps, "why in the name of Great Zarquon's Ghost didn't you just offer to _buy_ her a new TV? Preferably a flatscreen model that would have been much easier to carry and much safer to obtain?"

Leonard shrugged feebly as he navigated to the parking lot's exit. "Because . . . that would have made me look like a wimp. And like I was trying to buy her affections."

"And running in terror from that steroid-infused monstrosity of an ex-boyfriend _doesn't_?"

"Not if Penny doesn't have to see it," said Leonard. He pulled out onto the street and headed for home.

Sheldon shook his head in incredulity. "Leonard, I think you may need to get your IQ re-tested. The lengths you're going to for the mere long-term possibility of physical intimacy are practically Wolowitz-like in their irrationality, especially given the objective likelihood of your ultimate failure." He settled himself in the seat and folded his arms. "Is sexual intercourse really worth all this time and effort, Leonard?"

Leonard's mouth twitched. "Why don't you try it sometime and see for yourself?"

"As a devotee of the Vulcan discipline of _Kolinahr_ , I will respond to that with the only answer it merits: Ew."


	5. Chapter 5

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: A REBOOT HOMAGE

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. Much of the dialogue in this story is adapted directly from the 2007 pilot episode script by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The characters of Frank and Harry are owned by son-goku5.

\- 5 -

Her shower finished, Penny had gone back to her place to change before returning to the guys' living room, where she found Leonard's and Sheldon's friends on the couch watching a video of what looked like a university lecture. Strangely, it seemed like it was being given by two people at once: a small bespectacled guy in a wheelchair would speak in a very quiet mumble, immediately followed by much clearer words from the tall young man beside him. Something about the guy in the wheelchair looked oddly familiar, though the clothes and the fuzziness of the image suggested the video was pretty old. She sat down beside Howard. "What're you guys watching?"

"Ah, that's right, I forgot, you were in the bathroom when we got here," said Howard, pausing the video. "This," he pointed at the screen, "is a 1974 lecture at MIT from the theoretical physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking; you know, before he became a—" he wobbled his lips with his finger "—crrr-EEE-pppy com-PUUU-terrrr voiiiicce." He grinned as if expecting laughter. Raj only rolled his eyes, clearly having seen the gag before.

The impression rang a bell; Penny put two and two together. "Oh, right, the wheelchair guy who invented time." She couldn't miss Howard's and Raj's simultaneous wince. Neither said anything, though, which at least put them ahead of Sheldon. "Who's the other guy?"

"That's Bernard Carr, one of his students. By this point in his life Hawking's speech had degenerated to the point only his family, close friends and students could understand him," Howard explained. "So he always had a speaker accompany him for his lectures, who'd basically translate for the audience. This lecture was one of his last, before he switched solely to written publishing."

Penny felt a lump in her throat. "Oh my God, that's so sad. That's kinda worse than the speech synthesizer thing, isn't it? You need somebody else just to _talk_ for you . . . ."

"Well, yeah, I guess it is," said Howard, who had clearly never thought about it that way before, "but c'mon, this is _Stephen Hawking_ ; it's not like he'd have trouble getting the help. He could get physics students lined up 'round the block just to open doors for his wheelchair." He got up and went to the kitchen.

Penny looked at Raj. "So, you guys work with Leonard and Sheldon at the university?" The response she got was stranger even than Sheldon's responses had been: Raj simply froze in mid-forkful, a panic-stricken look on his face, and then glanced away as if seeking escape. Penny frowned. Maybe he hadn't understood her question. "I'm sorry, do you speak English?"

"Oh, he speaks English," said Howard, coming back over to the couch with a couple of juice boxes from the fridge. "He just can't speak to women."

"Really? Why?"

"He's kind of a nerd," said Howard, as if that should have been obvious, and offered her one of the boxes in his hand. "Juice box?"

Penny had to smile despite herself. For all Howard's over-the-top brashness, she had to admit she liked chutzpah—and she could tell there was real affection for his friend underlying his teasing. She took the juice box. "Thanks. But, you know, Sheldon and Leonard seem to be pretty big nerds, and they talk to me fine." She diplomatically left Howard off that list.

"Ah, well, that's because Sheldon considers himself above such petty things as physical sexuality, so women don't intimidate him," said Howard, dropping back down into the armchair. "And Leonard subscribes to the belief that if he just behaves like the nicest guy in the world, sooner or later _some_ poor desperate girl is just going to throw herself at him. Myself, that sounds like the fastest way I can think of to get either friend-zoned or used, but, you know, he's gonna have to learn from his own mistakes." He turned the video back on, leant back and put his hands behind his head, while inside Penny's brain two thoughts battled for dominance: the flummoxed half of her mind wanted to say _Wait, what do you mean Sheldon's above physical sexuality?!_ , and the outraged half wanted to grab Howard by his collar and say _Look, buddy, let me tell you just how far Leonard is from being stuck in my "friend-zone"!_

But before either thought could find its way out a third struck her like a splash of cold water: wasn't Howard, after all, more or less right? In the end, she _had_ thrown herself at Leonard partly because he'd been so unselfishly nice to her at one of the worst moments of her life . . . she hadn't wanted to think of herself as "desperate" in that way, but it was uncomfortably close to the truth. And here she was again, quite frankly, exploiting that intimacy for her own convenience. Worse, even if she'd done it primarily as an excuse to lay the groundwork for another encounter, she'd still done it almost as sheer reflex, betraying just how easily the manipulation came to her and how deeply rooted the habit must have become. Was this really being fair to Leonard?

Maybe this approach _had_ been a mistake. If Leonard did in fact get her stuff back, and she slept with him again, it really would look like she was the sort of girl who traded sex for favours, and she'd already gone too far down that road for her own peace of mind. But if she didn't sleep with him, she'd look like something even worse: the sort of girl who manipulated guys by _teasing_ them with sex without ever following through. And if she offered to sleep with him anyway even if he _didn't_ get her stuff back, something told her Leonard might be one of the rare guys who would actually turn such an offer down—out of self-condemnation that he didn't deserve it, if not insulted dignity at being pitied. Penny sank back into the couch, gnawing on her fingernail. When the hell had this all gotten so complicated?

 _It got complicated,_ the Nebraska part of her said acerbically, _when against all odds you actually got another chance with the smartest, nicest guy you ever banged, but still decided that a full-on relationship was too much to get into, so you tried to go for "friends with benefits" without actually taking care of the_ friends _part first. Next time, ho-bag, either take sex off the table completely or make it clear it's a totally unconnected issue—you know, like you used to do, before Kurt. Except you only ever did that when you didn't really care that much whether you saw the guy again, so you weren't risking anything, right? You think that might have something to do with all this?_

Sourly, Penny told herself to shut up.

* * *

She was able to escape the rest of the Hawking lecture a few minutes later when the cable and phone guys showed up together at her place, and after juggling them so they didn't interfere with each other, she gave her parents a quick call to leave her new phone number. Unfortunately, sans TV, she had no way to test her cable connection, so for lack of anything else to do she went back to the guys' apartment, where Howard graciously (in intent, anyway, if not execution) offered to provide further entertainment.

Confusingly, however, that didn't consist of putting on music or a DVD, but of booting up one of the desktop computers and logging in to something Howard called a "MMORPG", where he then proceeded to demonstrate the various ways one could kick monster butt (or occasionally get one's own butt kicked) in some crazy fantasy world that looked like a punk-rock version of those magic ring movies everybody had been raving about a couple years ago. Weirder yet, it seemed that half this game didn't even consist of shooting or fighting stuff—Penny could get behind that—but of simply playing out ordinary daily activities, like dickering over purchases, hanging out in bars and bragging about one's past adventures. It took nearly ten minutes for Howard to finish bargaining for a new pair of magic boots, which didn't even match the rest of his character's outfit; she was half-tempted to tell him that she was pretty sure she could have gotten him his boots in half the time for half the price, before belatedly deciding not to get further drawn in.

"This is one of my favourite places to kick back after a quest," said Howard of the tavern-type place on the computer screen. Penny and Raj watched over his shoulders as his armoured hero strode through it, his war tiger at his side. "They have a great house ale."

"Wow, cool tiger," Penny said, a little too bemused to be sure if she was being sarcastic or not. How could an imaginary ale be "great"?

"Yeah, I've had him since level ten. His name is Buttons." _Of course it is,_ Penny thought. "Anyway, if you had your own game character we could hang out, maybe go on a quest . . . ."

"Uh, sounds interesting," she temporized.

"So, you'll think about it?" said Howard hopefully.

"Oh, I don't think I'll be able to stop thinking about it," Penny assured him, clapped him on the shoulder with the best smile she could manage, and went back to the couch.

"Smooth," a high-pitched voice murmured gleefully behind her, and she started before realizing it was Raj—he must have directed the comment to Howard. She rolled her eyes. Well, Howard evidently had _some_ people believing his patter—now all he needed was to convince an actual girl of it. She smirked to herself.

The door opened, and Leonard leaned in; he looked sweaty, flushed, and exhausted, but as their eyes met he grinned, reached inside his hoodie and whipped out a white envelope. Penny squealed in delight, ran across the living room and threw her arms around him. "Oh my God, you _got_ it! You guys are the _best!_ "

"Technically, what we are is the fastest," said Sheldon, who was in the hall behind Leonard and looking even more weary and worn. "And I personally would like to take credit for being the quickest-thinking, although that should be the sort of thing that would go without saying." He was leaning on a cargo dolly; when she saw her TV sitting on it, she squealed again, jumped up and down and ran into the hall to hug Sheldon with equal vigour. He stiffened in her arms as if she'd stabbed him, but she ignored that.

"You managed to get in and out before he got back after all? Good going," said Howard, sounding impressed. Raj nodded in agreement and gave the other two a thumbs-up.

"Uh . . . ." Leonard exchanged a glance with Sheldon. "Well, technically, we didn't actually get out _before_ he got back. We simply . . . managed to avoid any unnecessary confrontations."

Penny blinked. "What are you talking about?" Then she gasped, hand flying to her mouth. "Wait—he _did_ get back when you were still there? Holy crap, you guys didn't try to _fight_ him, did you?!"

"I take it you missed the part where Leonard said we avoided _unnecessary_ confrontations," said Sheldon.

"Then—how did you . . . ?" Penny gestured back and forth between them.

"Well, I can't take any credit—" Leonard began modestly.

"You're right about that," Sheldon snapped, and turned to Penny. "We currently owe your restored possessions and our bodily integrity to an altogether superior understanding of momentum and gravity, i.e. mine."

"Huh?" Penny frowned.

Sheldon huffed in exasperation. "When your ex came rampaging out of his bedroom, I helped him confront his unsorted laundry, and when he tripped over it he confronted the hardwood floor under his carpet, and lost."

Leonard gave his roommate a sour look. "Would you also like to tell Penny exactly what gave our presence _away_ to Kurt while he was _in_ that bedroom?"

Sheldon cleared his throat and looked at the floor. "I think that falls into the category of unnecessary details, Leonard. Let's just call this 'mission accomplished'. Now, my unscheduled muscular exertions have left me in a condition where _I_ would like to use our shower, so if you don't mind?" He marched past Leonard, Howard and Raj into the apartment and disappeared down the hall towards the bathroom.

"Boy, you weren't kidding," Penny said to Leonard. "That guy is one serious whackadoodle." Then she saw the sudden alarm in Leonard's eyes, and a moment later stiffened in realization—of course, she and Leonard weren't supposed to have met before today, and she'd met Sheldon at the same time she'd "first" met Leonard! When would she have heard about this? Had they just given everything away? Her brain sought frantically for an explanation.

Howard's brain, unfortunately, seemed to be just as fast as the other guys', and considerably faster than hers. "Oho," he said, grinning, his eyes lighting up. "Leonard, Penny . . . is there something you two aren't telling us?"

"Uhhhh . . . ." Leonard stuttered.

"Well, uh—" Penny fumbled.

"Aha," said Howard smugly to Raj, who frowned. "I knew it." Penny's stomach sank. _Crap, this guy_ is _quick—_

"Gossiped behind someone's back while fixing the shower, didn't you, Leonard?" said Howard. "How very middle school of you. Well, don't worry, Penny, complaining about Sheldon behind his back is one of our group's favourite pastimes."

— _and prone to jumping in completely the wrong direction. Thank God._ Penny exhaled in relief, and saw Leonard had done the same. "He's not wrong," said Leonard. Dryly, he added, "Quite frequently we don't even do it behind Sheldon's back."

"And a number of the times you _think_ you're doing it behind my back, you're not," Sheldon called, his voice echoing from the bathroom. They all stiffened. "Just to keep you all informed."

Howard looked both sheepish and, despite himself, impressed. "Damn, he really does have Vulcan hearing," he murmured.

"Which I also told you," Sheldon called back. Leonard put his hand to his forehead. Howard shook his head. Raj raised his eyebrows and looked away awkwardly.

Penny cleared her throat and grinned. "Well, anyway, Leonard, I owe you both big time, so now that I have a little spare cash, why don't I take you and Sheldon out for dinner?" She looked at Howard and Raj and impulsively added, "Oh, heck, why don't you all come? I'm sure you guys know the restaurants in this part of town better than I do." From the corner of her eye, she caught Leonard's momentary disappointed wince before he schooled his reaction into pleasant blandness, and hastily finished as casually as she could, "And Leonard, I was hoping that maybe after dinner you could help me get my TV set up."

Leonard brightened and opened his mouth, but was cut off by Howard. "Oh, we could do that now," Howard said, patting the TV with an infuriatingly helpful smile. "Unless that's just a transparently obvious excuse to lure Leonard into your apartment later for some thank-you coitus," he added, his tone sardonic enough to imply he'd never heard anything so ridiculous in his life.

"Nobody is luring anybody anywhere for coitus, Howard!" Leonard snapped, his face beet red.

Howard's eyebrows went up. "So . . . you're _available_ for coitus?" he said to Penny. Raj rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

Penny grimaced, her face so hot she knew she must be blushing even more than Leonard. "Not with you, Howard, and can we _please_ stop saying 'coitus'?" she asked plaintively.

"Technically that would be coitus interruptus," called Sheldon from the bathroom. Leonard buried his face in his palms, while Penny fought the urge to either sink through the floor or burst into laughter.

* * *

Two days ago, a beautiful blonde offering to take him out to dinner—even if his friends had had to come along as part of it—would have seemed like an unbelievable blessing of good fortune to Leonard. Now he could only grit his teeth and try like heck to pretend to have a good time, rather than counting the minutes until he could get Penny alone somewhere and take her up on what he realized he was thinking of as the "real" reward. Thanks to Sheldon's ironclad rules about driving arrangements, he couldn't even enjoy having her sit up front with him; she had to sit in the back, wedged in between Howard and Raj, while Sheldon sat in the shotgun position.

He calmed himself by concentrating on the traffic as he drove. "Is Thai food okay with you, Penny?" he called back.

"Sure," said Penny cheerfully.

Of course, Sheldon spoke up. "We can't have Thai food," he objected. "We had Indian for lunch."

"So?" said Penny.

"They're both curry-based cuisines."

"So?" Penny repeated.

"They would be gastronomically redundant. I can see we're going to have to spell out everything for this girl," he said sidelong to Leonard.

Leonard caught Penny's eyes in the rear-view mirror and glanced skyward, letting the slightest grin tug at one side of his mouth. He was rewarded with a sparkling flash of green eyes and a rapid wink. With impish humour, Penny turned to her left and asked, "Any ideas, Raj?"

The astrophysicist did a credible impression of a deer in headlights: wide-eyed and frozen. Leonard wondered rather uncharitably if Raj could be persuaded to do an impression of a deer _under_ headlights before the night was out.

"Turn left on Lake Street and head up to Colorado," Howard suggested. "I know a wonderful little sushi bar—" _Oh, God, Howard, not a karaoke bar, please, not a karaoke bar_ "—that has karaoke."

Inwardly Leonard groaned. At least, as the designated driver, the guys couldn't get him drunk and browbeat him into attempting a song, a phenomenon they'd gleefully compared last time to listening to a manatee getting tortured. Of course, maybe Penny wouldn't—

"That sounds like fun!" Penny said happily, and gave Leonard another mischievous smile in the rear-view mirror. "Leonard? Feel like doing a duet with me?"

"Um—sure," said Leonard, before he could stop himself. Then he forced himself to add: "But I should probably warn you that musically, my performance tends to be a bit . . . substandard. At least in public."

"Oh, I'm sure your performance will be just fine," said Penny. "Just make sure you're playing the right instrument before you try hitting those high notes." Her smile was so innocently perky that for a second, Leonard genuinely wasn't sure whether she meant what he hoped she meant.

"It's karaoke, Penny," said Sheldon with a frown. "The word's derived from the Japanese terms _kara_ , 'empty,' and _okesutora_ , 'orchestra,' meaning music without a vocal track. No instrument playing's required. That's one of the reasons so many musically inept people like Leonard attempt it."

"I know what karaoke is, Sheldon," said Penny, sounding less cheerful now.

"If you thought it involved playing an instrument, that conclusion seems questionable."

"Well, Sheldon, a lot of people think of the voice _as_ an instrument," said Leonard diplomatically. "Like those Tuvan throat singers you were studying for a while there." In the mirror, he saw Penny frown and open her mouth, and he shook his head at her quickly.

"Exactly," Howard chimed in. "Or this golden tunemaker right here." He tapped his own larynx, then broke into song. "'Baby, baby, don't get hooked on me-ee . . . Uh: baby, baby, don't get hooked on me, oh . . . .'" As he'd shown on previous karaoke nights, Howard actually had a pretty good voice; he might have done better impressing Penny with it if he hadn't been so clearly singing straight to her in an all-too-intentionally-meaningful way. Penny looked away and carefully hid her mouth with one hand. Leonard supposed if she was hiding laughter rather than repugnance, this evening wouldn't be all bad.

Sheldon cast a sour glance back at Howard, then lowered his voice again. "I don't know what your odds are in the world as a whole, Leonard," he muttered out of the side of his mouth, "but as far as the population of this car goes, you're a veritable Mack Daddy."

Leonard had to grin. "Never tell me the odds," he murmured back, in his best Han Solo impression. He was aware of Sheldon's narrow-eyed, quizzical look, but said nothing.

* * *

The evening did not, as it transpired, suck completely, but it had more than its share of down moments.

The first happened when Penny, already a few Cosmopolitans into her bar bill, dragged Leonard up to the stage to do a duet on "Summer Lovin'" from _Grease_ , and Leonard was spared from humiliation only by the unpleasant discovery that she was an even worse singer than he was—she was pitchy, off-key, kept losing the song's rhythm, and was prone to giggling and audibly correcting herself whenever she tripped over a word. More disquietingly, she appeared to have absolutely no awareness of just how bad she was; her happy flush at the audience's laughter and applause really seemed like the reaction of someone who thought she'd knocked it out of the park. None of her subsequent performances was any better, even when she duetted with Howard, who at least had enough musical skill to more or less make up for her. Leonard decided to put it down to the alcohol and to hope she sang better when sober, and to hope he'd never be called on for his opinion of that singing if it turned out she didn't.

The second negative aspect of the night was Howard's repeated attempts to hit on Penny. This wouldn't have been so bad in itself—Penny simply ignored Howard's passes and flirtations until she had gotten drunk enough to genuinely no longer notice them—but Howard's visible and public strike-outs seemed to be a cue to several guys from other tables to come over and try hitting on Penny as well. Most of them were much better-looking than Leonard, a good few of them sang better, and every single one of them was taller, and while Penny never actually gave out her number or accepted any of the half-dozen date requests, she laughed, collected _their_ phone numbers, and flirted back just as if she were nothing more than a single girl out on the town with friends. Which, Leonard had to admit, was exactly what she was, for all practical intents and purposes: implied "reward" or not, amazing one-night stand or not, he and Penny were still only the most recent of acquaintances and he had no actual claim on her loyalties whatsoever. His feelings for her were his problem, not hers. None of which stopped him from feeling more and more jealous, and gloomier and gloomier, as the night progressed.

The third drawback of the night was, perhaps inevitably, Sheldon himself. His rant last night to Penny aside, Leonard actually did enjoy his roommate's company much of the time; Sheldon could, quite frequently, be the most entertaining and fascinating friend imaginable—as long as you were talking about something you both found interesting or doing something you both liked, and you were at least somewhat able to keep up with him. Unfortunately, however, sushi at a karaoke bar with Penny didn't meet any of those criteria. As the night wore on and the restaurant got louder and louder, Sheldon's impatience with Penny's inability to follow his increasingly esoteric conversation, aggravated by his fundamental dislike of karaoke to begin with, drove him to make more and more acerbic observations about her mental capacities. Had Penny's intoxication not rendered her as oblivious to Sheldon's snark as effectively as it did to Howard's come-ons, Leonard was sinkingly aware she would probably have stormed out long ago, and that didn't bode well for how she and Sheldon might get along on a more extended basis.

At least the food was good. The fact of it being a weekday gave Leonard an excuse to suggest going home by eleven, and Penny cheerfully paid their tab without complaint. Leonard dropped off Howard first and then Raj, leaving Penny the entire back seat to stretch out in. Sheldon had taken shotgun again, and was smacking his lips dubiously as they pulled into Leonard's parking space. "I still think they were misrepresenting something there," he said for the fourth time, while Leonard shut the car off. "That unagi was not real freshwater eel. I'm not even sure it was eel at all. Oh, why did I never get around to learning Japanese properly? I'm sure I could have spared a week or two _some_ time."

"Sheldon, you honestly think you can learn Japanese in a _week_?" asked Penny.

"Oh, I recognize the linguistic difficulties," Sheldon acknowledged, climbing out of the car. "That's why I'm willing to allow the extra seven days." The three of them headed up the sidewalk and into the building. "But language is simply recognizing symbols and memorizing rules for how they interact, Penny. At the age of fifteen I was able to pick up enough German to teach a physics course in five days, when I was a visiting professor in Heidelberg."

"Seriously?" Penny turned to Leonard as they climbed the stairs. It might only be alcohol-induced wobbliness, but she had taken Leonard's arm again, which he had to admit did a great deal to improve his mood. "Leonard, is your roommate pulling my leg here?"

"No, he actually did manage to do that," Leonard acknowledged. "What he's not telling you is that German is already pretty closely related to English, which gave him a head start, and secondly that he did it by reading a whole bunch of classical physics essays which were originally published in German. Which meant that any time he tried to talk about something other than physics he tended to trip over assumptions about what new words meant—and that sometimes produced some really uncomfortable results."

"You're kidding," said Penny. "Like what?"

"Let's just say that I learned one should never answer 'yes' to the question ' _Möchtest du eine Darmspülung?_ ', unless one actually would prefer to get an enema rather than a bowl of chicken soup," said Sheldon, with a distinct air of wanting to change the subject. As they arrived at the fourth floor, he turned and nodded formally to Penny. "Thank you for the dinner, Penny."

"Aw, you're welcome, sweetie." Penny smiled warmly. "Thank you guys for getting me the money I needed to pay for it. And for getting my TV back from Kurt as well. Oh, that reminds me, Leonard—you still feel like coming in and helping me set it up?" Her inquiring expression was perfectly innocent, but she patted his chest as she asked, and as if by sheer accident her fingers drifted over the fabric of his T-shirt where it covered his nipple and exerted the slightest of pressure with a fingernail scrape. A jolt of sensation almost too sharp to be pleasurable shot down Leonard's spine into his groin, and he nearly staggered.

Sheldon frowned at Penny. "Are you really planning to watch TV this late at night, Penny? If you're starting a new work shift tomorrow, I'd recommend trying to get to sleep earlier, rather than later."

Penny's smile took on a tight, edgy look; Leonard suddenly wondered if maybe she'd noticed a lot more of Sheldon's grumpiness in the restaurant than she'd let on. "Well, Sheldon, sometimes I play late-night TV shows in the background to help me _get_ to sleep," she said. "Just put it down to my inferior brain capacity." Oops: yep, she'd _definitely_ noticed more than she let on.

Sheldon, by contrast, noticed absolutely nothing. "Well, as I understand young people say these days, whatever floats your boat, baby-O, right?" He turned to Leonard. "Leonard, I doubt this will take you very long given the primitive quality of Penny's equipment, but if I'm asleep when you come in, don't wake me. You already have one strike under the roommate agreement. Goodnight." He nodded, did an about face, marched into 4A and closed it; a second later, they heard the lock turn and catch.

Penny stared at the door in disbelief. "Oh, my God. Did he just lock you out?" Before he could answer, she frowned. "And what the hell's this 'roommate agreement'? And why do you have a strike?"

Leonard sighed. "Well, I could explain those things, or I could set your TV up . . . ."

Penny shook her head. "No, you know, you're right. I don't want to know. Come on in." She dug out her key and let them into her apartment.

Leonard gulped. It wasn't as bad as Kurt's place, but it was pretty clear Penny's approach to unpacking was simply to take things out of their boxes and put them down somewhere out of her immediate way; already the living room was a mess, with piles of clothes and shoes everywhere and stacks of CDs and DVDs heaped in various corners. The TV sat on a small table in front of the couch with the other media devices underneath it. Penny waved at it. "I've got an entertainment unit on order from IKEA, this is just temporary," she said. "Why don't you get started on that while I go change?"

"Gotcha," Leonard muttered, his brain clicking into tech mode despite himself. Cable box and a DVD-VCR combo—no digital video recorder yet? Well, maybe she just hadn't gotten around to it. He took off his hoodie, knelt down in front of the TV, and began untangling the connector cords as he decided which plugs to put into which jacks.

* * *

Standing in her bedroom doorway, Penny smiled as she watched Leonard finishing his task. She could tell he had found the evening less enjoyable than he'd hoped; she'd been more than a little frustrated herself, even if she'd been much better at hiding it. (Life as a woman involved a lot of knowing when not to let on how you really felt.) Not to say that the karaoke hadn't been fun, even if Leonard was, sadly, just as bad a singer as he'd warned her he was. Ah, well, at least she'd made up for him in their duet . . . and she knew he was perfectly capable of making up for his weaknesses in other, much more important ways.

Squatting down on his heels with his hoodie off, for example, and without Kurt as an overwhelming contrast, she could see there was a great deal more clean definition to Leonard's arms and shoulders than his clothes let on. And his posture, pulling his jeans tight, emphasized the tautness and cuteness of his backside; Penny had always considered herself a connoisseur of men's tushes, and Leonard had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. She wondered if she could get him to consider contact lenses, or maybe Lasik surgery . . . on the other hand, if he stopped wearing glasses, she'd never again get to see that smoking moment last night when he'd deliberately taken them off while staring at her, that "Okay-now-I-mean- _business_ " moment that had turned much of her insides molten. Just the memory of that moment was doing interesting things to her now.

"There we go," said Leonard as he plugged in the last cable, sounding satisfied. He put his hands on his knees, levered himself to his feet, and grabbed the converter remote from the couch. "Okey-dokey, power up—" He pressed a button; the TV came on, showing Jon Stewart. "Channel test, volume test . . . ." Leonard surfed through channels, stopped on MTV and cranked the volume up and down, then nodded again. "Okay, switching to auxiliary input—" He pressed another button, and the screen went blue and silent; white block letters in the corner said READING, then flashed to NO DISC FOUND. Leonard frowned. "Hey, Penny," he called, and turned, "can I grab one of these DVDs to—?"

His voice choked off with a gulp, his mouth open, his face red. Penny smiled at him with her best heavy-lidded look and strolled forward as if nothing was out of the ordinary. The amazing thing was, nothing _was_ , particularly; this wasn't anything more than what she normally slept in, a comfortable pink camisole top and her white Hello Kitty pajama shorts. But Leonard was gaping at her as if she was on a catwalk in Victoria's Secret's latest. "What's that, sweetie?" she asked innocently, folding her arms beneath her breasts . . . and not coincidentally using that to push them up a little against the fabric of the top, both accentuating her cleavage and generating just enough friction to make it obvious she wasn't wearing a bra.

Leonard cleared his throat vigorously. "I, uh . . . ." he husked, and cleared his throat again. "I need a . . . DVD. To finish testing the . . . setup." Behind his glasses, his eyes had dilated, darkening almost to blackness.

"Ooohhhh," said Penny in mock comprehension. "Well, I've got plenty of them around—let's see." She revolved on one heel, finger to her lips the way she'd once seen Marilyn Monroe do it in an old poster, then exclaimed in feigned recognition. "Oh, right, any of these should do!" Deliberately facing away from Leonard, she bent at the waist in a way that pulled the Hello Kitty shorts tightly around her rear, and caused them to ride up sufficiently that it was clear she wasn't wearing panties either. The sound of his indrawn breath shot both triumph and arousal through her. She grinned to herself, picked up a DVD, spun about and handed it to him. He stared down at it; it was a volume of _Sex and the City_.

"There you go!" she said chirpily; then, as he stared, she arched an eyebrow at him. "Well? Aren't you going to . . . slip it in? And make sure everything works?"

Leonard closed his eyes and shook himself, clearly holding onto his control with a fingernail's grip. "Penny," he rasped. "Do you have any idea what you're doing to me right now?"

Penny nodded as if she was only just now thinking about it. "Some," she said. "Some idea." Then she stepped forward and without warning laid her hand against the front of his trousers, feeling the hardness beneath the tent that had developed there. Leonard gasped, and unable to help herself, so did she. She smiled widely. "Now I think I have a much _better_ idea," she murmured, sliding her hand up and down and around against that pressure.

"Oh, God, Penny," Leonard moaned. "If you don't stop that I don't think I'm going to be able to control myself."

Penny leant close to him, put her lips against his ear and murmured, "Good." She let her voice drop to its huskiest register, and slid her other hand up his arm and around his shoulder. "I _want_ you to lose control, Leonard," she whispered, pressing him against her. "I _want_ you to forget who you think you are, and be who you were with me last night. I want you to be that amazing man who saved my ass at the worst moment of my life, and who made me come more times in one night than I came in the whole month before that. Because I promised you a reward, and I always keep my promises." She slid his zipper down, then shifted her hand to grasp the button of his jeans, working to undo it.

Leonard stiffened. Abruptly, he pushed himself backwards, one hand coming down to grip hers where it tugged at his waistband. "Penny, wait," he said, and the sudden sharp change in his voice was like a wrench being thrown into a set of bicycle gears. "Is that—is that what this is, a reward? Is that _all_ that this is? Because I meant it last night, when I said I didn't want to be your charity case. I didn't think you wanted to be mine either."

Penny blinked at him, bewildered. "No—no, of course not! What would make you think that?!"

"Um, maybe the words 'I promised you a reward and I always keep my promises'?" Leonard stepped back, breaking their contact, and gestured angrily at the TV. "I didn't do all this just to buy another night with you, Penny!"

The ludicrousness of that sparked Penny's own temper, never far from the surface. "Oh, _please_ , Leonard," she snarled, poking him in the chest. "You telling me you'd have gone and faced down Kurt for me if we'd only just met?! If the first time you'd seen me was standing in this apartment door?"

"I think I would have at least _tried!_ " Leonard snapped back. "Because it would have been the nice thing to do! The _right_ thing to do!"

"Sure, and the fact I'm hot and you're a geek wouldn't have influenced your thinking _at all_ ," Penny sneered. "Well, let me tell you something, buddy; if you think you _bought_ anything from me, then I guess that just tells me what kind of girl you really think I am, doesn't it? I sleep with who I sleep with because _I_ want to! Me! Not for payback, not for favours, for _me!_ " She grabbed up her robe from the couch, flung it on, and folded her arms, glaring at him with more hurt and anger than she'd ever expected to feel this night. "And I don't need anybody who thinks I choose my partners for any other reason."

For a moment, she saw a similar hurt in his own eyes. Then his jaw tightened. "Well, Penny," Leonard said evenly, "that moral indignation would carry just a _bit_ more force if you hadn't virtually dry-humped me in the bathroom today to get me to change my mind." He threw the DVD angrily onto the couch, stepped around her, grabbed his hoodie and zipped himself up, then went to the door. He paused there and turned; despite his clear best efforts she could see pain welling back up over his fury.

"You know, I meant it," he said, "when I told you that last night was the best night of my entire life. And I still mean it, because it's still true. I'm betting it'll probably be true when I'm old and senile. Of course, given my luck I'll probably be sharing a flat with Sheldon at some old folks' home." He shook his head, ruefully bitter. "I guess all I hoped was that . . . was that it was good enough for you that just maybe you'd want more of it for its own sake. More of—more of _me_."

Penny gritted her teeth, fighting desperately to hold onto her own anger through the ever-increasing urge to start crying. This hurt worse than any of the fights she'd ever had with Kurt. "I _did_ want more of you, you asshole," she got out through the thickness in her throat. "What do you think all this was about? Didn't you get that all that 'reward' crap was just an _excuse?_ " Unable to stop herself, tears started trickling down her cheeks. "I wanted to jump you again the first time I saw you today, Leonard. I still do. Isn't that enough?"

Leonard stared at her, mouth open. Then he swallowed. "Any other day of my life, it would have been, Penny," he said hoarsely, his eyes bright and wet as well. "But if you _need_ an excuse before you'll let yourself jump me again, or you think _I_ do, then maybe that says something about what kind of guy you think _I_ am. Or what kind of relationship you want this to be. And I never thought I'd ever say this in my life, Penny, and certainly not to someone as amazing as you . . . but no. If those are the only terms you're available on, maybe it's _not_ enough."

He turned, walked out of the door, and closed it behind him. It was not a slam at all, only a very gentle click. But it hit Penny as if he'd smacked her in the face with it. She let herself drop onto the couch, numb with shock. Jesus Christ, how the hell had _this_ happened? _What_ had happened? How had they gone inside of two minutes from an imminent repeat of the best sex of her life to . . . _this?_

Like a bubble wavering hazily up through deep water, it slowly dawned upon her that in all her life, this kind of event—a guy _she_ wanted walking out on _her_ —had never actually occurred before. Ever. She'd had a few breakup-causing fights in her life, but in all of them, without exception, she'd been the one who finished things, even if she hadn't started them. And the few times she'd been dumped rather than dumper, she'd almost always been just as bored or fed up as the guy was, and had been perfectly content to endure the "I Need My Space"/"We're Very Different People" speeches and part ways amicably. Even Kurt might have stepped out on her, but he had never _walked_ out on her. Only the experience of losing a part she really wanted had ever come close to this level of pain—and even there, most times the failure was only due to not being right for the part. She had never been rejected simply for being herself; she had never had something she wanted so badly taken away from her without warning and then told it was simply and solely because she hadn't done enough—hadn't _been_ enough—to deserve it. The experience was utterly foreign to her.

But, she thought, it must have been a painfully familiar one to Leonard. He had certainly told her enough of his past last night to make that obvious, even if he'd never complained or showed any hurt over it. And if that rejection, that humiliation and ruination of hope, had happened often enough . . . then the only sensible reaction was to learn never to hope for or expect anything, wasn't it? Which must have been why Leonard had been prepared to leave like a gentleman last night, without reward. And why he must have been so hurt by thinking tonight had been meant as nothing _more_ than a "reward", once he'd had the chance to think through everything that implied. Being rejected was one thing. Thinking you were only being used _until_ you got rejected must feel even worse.

She'd been right, Penny realized, through her tears. She'd screwed this up. She should have simply told Leonard straight out that she wanted him, or even just jumped him without asking, rather than trying to give them both an excuse with this "favour" crap. But everything in her, especially after Kurt, had recoiled so reflexively from that idea, from that risk and that vulnerability, that it had simply never occurred to her as an option. And now it might be too late.

She half-stood, then paused, torn between the humiliation of going after him and the misery of the empty bed waiting for her.


	6. Chapter 6

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: A REBOOT HOMAGE

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. Much of the dialogue in this story is adapted directly from the 2007 pilot episode script by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The characters of Frank and Harry are owned by son-goku5.

\- 6 -

Leonard had left Penny's apartment with an angry stride, but his movement across the hall slowed with every step, and he had been standing still now outside the door of #4A, his hand motionless on the doorknob, for almost a full minute. Not a long time, objectively speaking, but long enough for his brain to explore more permutations and variations of the last five minutes than a Cray supercomputer modeling climate changes. And all of them, so far, had ended with the same conclusion: He, Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, with his IQ of 173, was the biggest fucking moron on the planet.

So Penny had asked for more help when she needed it, from someone whom she'd had every reason to think would _want_ to help; so fucking what? What the hell was wrong with that?—totally aside from the fact that helping was the right thing to do anyway. And if she'd (maybe) crossed a little bit of a line in how she'd manipulated him into saying yes, it was entirely his own fault that he'd yielded to it, and entirely his own fault that he hadn't said something like _That's not necessary_ the moment she'd hinted how she might express her gratitude—after all, by implicitly accepting her terms, he'd done as much to create that dynamic as she had. And it had been nothing but his own stubborn stupid ego that had suddenly balked at the thought of being "rewarded" at the last second, taking all the jealousy, impatience and resentment he'd felt all night and turning them into wounded pride at the first excuse it found.

How could he have forgotten everything they'd shared last night, even above and beyond the sex? How could he have thought for even a second that Penny, who even he could tell had about as much guile in her as a three-year-old, might be using him the way other girls he'd known had tried—from the high school classmates who'd flirted him into doing their homework for them, the girls in college who'd suckered him into bar tabs, and even Joyce Kim, the spy? Was his self-esteem, even now, still so low that he couldn't believe somebody like Penny might actually want him for _him_ , and would look for any evidence at all such a phenomenon was false so that he wouldn't be destroyed once more by hoping he had finally found it . . . ?

 _Well, the evidence unfortunately suggests that the answer to that hypothesis is: Yes._ That the voice in Leonard's head sounded remarkably like Sheldon was only the perfect capper to his self-loathing.

He slumped, his head falling forward to rest against the door. Well, if he'd wanted to destroy any hope of happiness in his life himself solely to spare himself the pain of losing it, he'd succeeded. And now he'd have to avoid Penny as much as possible all the rest of the time either of them lived here, knowing that he'd had a chance with the most amazing person he'd ever met in his life, and had blown it out of sheer stupid arrogance. Because there was no way she would ever forgive him after this. He couldn't imagine it would be worth even trying to ask. No, it was time to go to bed, and in the morning start looking into becoming a monk. Several of the best scientists in history had been monks. He dug into his pocket, got out his key, and put it in the lock.

Then he stopped. Blinked. And said out loud with a flabbergasted expression, "Oh my God, what the hell am I _doing?_ " Without a second's hesitation, he shoved his key back in his pocket, spun on his heels, strode back to Penny's door and lifted his fist to bang on it.

The door was yanked open just before his hand descended; her robe clutched half-closed around her, Penny stepped forward, crying, "Leonard, _wait_ —!" Then she saw him there and cut herself off, jumping back in shock, as did Leonard. They stared wide-eyed at each other for half an instant. There was no way to tell who moved first, but in the next second they had crashed together, mouths locking and arms grappling, hips pressing together in frenzied desperation, their only sounds muffled groans and gasps. Blind with sensation, Leonard made no resistance at all as Penny dragged him backwards through her apartment and into her bedroom, hurling him onto the mattress and flinging herself onto him.

* * *

"I'm sorry!" Leonard gasped out between kisses. "I'm sorry, Penny, I'm so sorry, I was a stupid moron, whatever you want I'll do, however, whenever, it's all fine, I don't care—"

"Leonard," Penny panted, "shut—up." She flung off her robe and rolled on top of him, pinning him down at shoulders and hips, burying her face in his neck, half-tempted to sink her teeth in like a vampire. Leonard writhed under her lips, mouth and tongue as if the contact was electrocuting him. She broke away just long enough to rip off her top and hurl it to one side, then grabbed his shoulders and hauled him up, forcing his head down between her breasts. Leonard gladly returned the courtesy, using his lips and tongue on every inch of glorious soft swelling curvy skin until Penny's breasts throbbed heavily with heat and her nipples ached like rock-hard spikes. She ducked down to kiss him again, then shoved him back to the mattress.

"My turn," she told him in a whisper, and slid down him until her head was level with his jeans. With quick impatient tugs she finished the process she'd started a while ago, undoing zipper and buttons and yanking down jeans and briefs together. Freed from confinement, his manhood sprang up, and she snickered deep in her throat at the evidence of her effect on him. " _That's_ more like it," she told him. "Do you—" she kissed it "—have any idea—" more kisses traced their way downwards "—how hard it was—" with her tongue, she bathed his manhoods's base and jewels "—not to drag you—" licking her way back up "—into the bathroom—" she swirled her tongue around the pulsing, swollen tip "—at that karaoke bar—" took the head wholly into her mouth for a moment "—and have my way with you?" Without waiting for an answer, she took a deep breath and plunged her head down, engulfing him entirely. Leonard let out a sound that was almost a cry of pain, his body fighting to leap upwards, clearly only barely holding himself down to keep from choking her.

She clung to him, gulping him in as she willed back her breath and her gag reflex, half-minded to punish Leonard by mixing pain in with his pleasure through some tricks Kurt had taught her . . . tricks involving teeth. She'd been more than willing to learn such stuff when she'd first met Kurt, and had only grasped in the last few months how the technique was sheer ego gratification for him, a proof of his power over her in what he could get her to do. The realization had soured her on the act and thrown another wrench into their rapidly collapsing sex life. But this was nothing like those encounters had been. Here, the power was all _hers_ —it was her skill, her unhesitating willingness, that was reducing Leonard to such helplessness, as she used the barest movements of lips and tongue, the delicate scrapes of fingernails upon trembling thighs and soft scrotal skin, and the invisible pressure of the muscles of her throat to pin him in place as surely as a spear through his body.

And even as she reveled in that power a distant part of her brain suddenly blinked in amazement. Perhaps, that remote part admitted, this was what Kurt had loved—that sense of mastery, of possession—just as much as she felt now. If so, then maybe she was more like him than she'd wanted to admit. The thought disquieted her enough that she released Leonard, and found herself staring in amazement at the spectacular result of her efforts. _Good timing_ , she thought. Bare seconds more of that and she'd have been left in the lurch. But Leonard didn't seem to mind having been brought to such an agonized magnitude; he was wheezing, his chest rising and falling, trying to get his breath back.

"Oh my God, how do you do that?" he gasped. "Nobody ever did _anything_ like that to me before. I feel like if I even _move_ I'll be done for."

Penny grinned, flattered despite herself. "Eh—you did the same thing to me last night, and way more than once. A little turnabout's fair play, don't you think?"

"Oh, I was actually thinking exactly the same thing," said Leonard. He took off his glasses, lifted up his head and beckoned her, eyes dark and face unsmiling. "Come here," he told her, with no nervousness or doubt whatsoever.

Penny obliged, already giggling in delight. Once she was in range, he grasped her hips and hauled her the rest of the way to him. He slid his hands around to her buttocks, grabbed the waistband of her Hello Kitty shorts and pulled them down over the curves of her rear, then tugged them down in front as well just far enough to gain the access they both so desperately wanted. Gripping her posterior tightly, his mouth closed on her sodden folds and aching nub. Penny shocked both him and herself as her startled cry of, "Oh holy shit oh fuck my fucking God Leonnn _aaaaarrrrrrrddddd—!_ " spiraled upwards out of control far faster than she'd believed possible; within seconds, her brain had shattered in a wrenching firework of light and heat that left her panting and slumped down.

"Already?" Leonard spluttered. "Are you flipping _kidding_ me?" She wasn't sure whether it was the bemused disbelief in his tone, or the way that his voice was still muffled from the position of his face, but Penny suddenly found herself laughing hysterically and falling over. It took Leonard a second, but eventually the sheer hysteria of her mirth infected him too, and he pulled her to snuggle against him, laughing along with her between kisses.

"I'm not done, you know," she informed him once she got her breath back.

"Well thank God for _that_ ," he riposted dryly, and nodded down at himself. "And here I was worried about _me_ going off too soon."

"Hey, it's not my fault girls recover so much faster than guys," she protested. Pausing only to wriggle out of her shorts, she rolled him over, slithered into position atop him and began grinding down, using her heat, weight and moisture to restore the hardness the outburst of laughter had cost him. In less than a minute he was back almost to where he had been, and she reached down to find him and guide him inside where he belonged. "Aaahhhhhh," she moaned, settling into place, letting herself hold still for a moment. "Oh, fuck, _yes_ , _that's_ what I wanted, all fricking day."

"Oh, God, me too," said Leonard breathlessly, his eyes closed. "I feel like I should start reciting the elements again. Hell, I could sing them. You ever heard Tom Lehrer's song 'The Elements'?" He broke into a giddy, high-pitched version of the "Modern Major-General" tune. "'There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium/ And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium—'"

Penny put one hand over his mouth, cutting him off. "Sweetie," she purred, "whatever you have to do to hold on, that's fine, but if I wanted singing we'd have done this in the bathroom at the karaoke place." She squeezed her internal muscles hard, to take the sting from her admonishment; from his groan and spasmodic thrust upward, it worked. As if in karmic payback, however, the thrust caught her G-spot at the right internal angle again, and she shuddered like someone had stuck her with a cattleprod. " _Oh!_ Oh, Jesus, that's good! Do that again, baby, please, just like that!"

"As you wish," said Leonard, with an odd theatricality; it momentarily made her wonder if she was supposed to recognize the line from somewhere, before he grabbed her hips, kicked his pants off, brought his knees up to give himself some leverage and began thrusting up into her with the rolling movements he'd learned last night and clearly not forgotten at all since. Penny made a breathless sound that was half laugh, half sob, put her hands on his chest and joined in with a will, rolling and gyrating her hips in synchrony with his own movements.

Time passed in blissful oblivion. Pleasure ballooned up inside her core and her stomach, swelling larger and larger, tighter and tighter . . . and seemed to halt, trembling just out of her reach on the edge of detonation, as she realized the fatigue of a long day was slowing her down. She let herself subside, sweat-soaked and shivering, and draped her head down to rest her forehead on Leonard's. "Babe, I'm so sorry, but I'm running out of steam," she gasped. "Can we change positions?"

"Of course! Whatever you want," Leonard panted. "You want me on top?"

"Um . . . actually, you remember last night? When I told you how I really liked it?"

Leonard frowned; then his eyes widened. "Oh." A grin came over his face. "Yeah, I think I'd be up for that." He slid out from her, rolled to his knees, and backed up, patting the mattress where he'd been. "Okay, sweetheart; you know the drill."

Penny laughed. "The drill? Are you going gangsta on me? I like it!" She got on her hands and knees and let her arms fold down, resting her face and chest against the mattress with her backside thrust out, and hissed in anticipation when she felt his hardness nuzzling her entrance. "Leonard, please, come on, just get in there— _oh!_ " She had expected the same awkwardness he'd shown when first doing this last night, but evidently she'd underestimated either his need, or his ability to read her own; the moment he was in position he'd simply clamped onto her hips and thrust hard, burying himself hilt-deep in a single stroke. She wailed and flung her arms out, fisting her hands in the bedsheets to hold on as he drew out and began hammering hard against her, leaning back and pressing on her spine to generate as much internal friction as he could. With the G-spot stimulation even more intense at this angle, the balloon of excitement and pleasure grew massive inside her, and burst at last in a drenching wave of tingling, burning spasms that had her yelling into her pillow. Her knees gave way and she thudded down to the mattress, quivering like gelatin.

Leonard dropped down with her, draping himself over her, his hips still working; she realized she'd beaten him to the finish line, and decided to help him along. Turning her head as far back as she could, she whispered filthy encouragements to him, urging him on in her huskiest, most seductive tones, while stretching one arm back to scrape her fingernails along the side of his hips and buttocks and reaching the other up to scratch at his back. To her own mild dismay, the tactics stimulated _her_ strongly enough that she felt herself beginning another climb to orgasm, but she was nowhere near climax when he finally reached his breaking point and erupted inside her with a sound almost like a moan of pain. The limp weight of him as he collapsed over her, gasping and wheezing, guaranteed nothing more would be happening for a few minutes.

Still, she couldn't really complain, Penny thought dreamily; she'd had two phenomenal climaxes inside a quarter of an hour, and before Leonard, that hadn't happened for a _long_ time. And the night was nowhere near over, yet—

—or was it? Afterglow gave way to alarm as she realized that Leonard's wheezing gasps had taken on a distinctly whistling, unhealthy note. She twisted in the bed, her eyes wide in sudden fear at the panicked look on his sallow, bloodless face as he struggled to get up. "Leonard? Baby? What's wrong?"

* * *

"Asthma—attack," Leonard wheezed. The iron grip closing his chest was familiar, but hadn't struck as strongly as this in a while; he'd overexerted himself. "Need—inhaler—my jacket—" He tried to roll off the bed, but couldn't seem to find the strength. Looking even more panicked than he felt, Penny leapt from the bed herself, raced round it and found Leonard's hoodie near the door. She shook the inhaler out of one pocket, literally flung herself back on the bed and slapped it into Leonard's hand. Leonard uncapped it, brought it to his mouth with shaking hands, and triggered it. A pressurized hiss split the air; Leonard sucked in the medication, gave a huge gasp, and subsided, his chest opening up. He hit himself with another dose, let himself fall back on the bed, and closed his eyes. His breathing deepened and slowed. He could feel the warmth gradually coming back to his face.

"Holy God." Penny took his hand. "Jesus, Leonard, don't _scare_ me like that again. Next time let's make sure that thing's right here on the bedside table within reach, okay?"

"Okay," agreed Leonard, in exhaustion. Then he realized what she'd said, and tilted his head to look at her, unable to keep a hopeful grin off his face. "So there _is_ going to be a next time, then?"

"Oh, you can bet your sweet bippy on _that_ ," she assured him, chuckling, and let herself slide down to curl around him. She sighed in contentment. "I'm not giving this up anytime soon."

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that," Leonard said as sincerely as he could.

That got him a wry look. "Oh, I'd say I have some idea," she said, and brought his hand to her groin so he could feel for himself exactly how much of a mess they'd made. He withdrew his hand with a grimace, and she laughed. "Well, next time don't have an asthma attack, and we can clean up together."

"Yeah, sure, that's the simplest solution," he agreed in a sardonic deadpan. After a moment, he sighed. "Penny, I really am truly sorry for being such an asshole. I swear to God I had no intention of acting that way, I just—" He sighed again. "I guess I'm so used to _expecting_ to be taken advantage of, I have a hard time believing that it _isn't_ happening. And when all those guys hit on you in the karaoke bar, I just kept thinking, 'whatever I've got to offer over _that_ , it's bound to run out sooner or later' . . . ." He looked beseechingly at her. "You understand, right?"

"Hm. All those guys who hit on me in the karaoke bar," said Penny, with an arch look. "Oh, you mean all the guys I _turned down_ , right?"

"Yeah, but—not before collecting all their telephone numbers . . . ."

"Leonard, I didn't _keep_ any of them. I threw them out in the girls' washroom." She propped her head up on her hand and looked pointedly at him. "You'd rather I acted all offended and prim, and made Sheldon, Howard and Raj start wondering why I was behaving differently? Or even just told them, 'sorry, boys, I'm already sleeping with someone at this table'? Because _you_ wanted to keep that secret from Sheldon, remember—though I have to admit, I'd really rather not have Wolowitz constantly making cheap sleazy wisecracks about us, either."

"Wolowitz will make cheap sleazy wisecracks about you _whatever_ he thinks is going on," Leonard pointed out. "And you could have just told them you had _a_ boyfriend, you didn't have to say who . . . ." He trailed off as Penny looked away, her expression changing in a way he really didn't like. "I mean— _aren't_ we boyfriend and girlfriend, at this point? Because if we aren't . . . what are we?" He tried very hard to keep his voice from cracking on the last question, and mostly succeeded.

"I don't know, Leonard." Penny sighed and looked back at him. "Look—I like you an awful lot. I even kinda like your goofy friends. And the sex is amazing, and I don't want to stop seeing you. And I owe you an apology too, while we're at it—I shouldn't have tried to set up the whole 'favour' thing as an excuse to get you back into bed. I never wanted to be one of those girls who just used sex to get what she wanted out of a guy . . . heck, half the time sex _was_ all I wanted out of the guy." She chuckled, but then seemed to notice his sourly unamused look, and cleared her throat. "Anyway, point is: I want you. I want to be with you. But . . . ."

"Oh, boy, there's always a 'but'," Leonard muttered, not able to stop himself.

" _But_ ," Penny repeated, "I just got out of a four-year relationship with a guy who left me with a pretty low opinion of all the old-school romantic words, you know, 'love', 'soulmate', 'forever', all that. I just—I'm not sure I'm ready to jump right back into that kind of thing, you know? Especially since we really don't know each other all _that_ well, yet. I like the idea of taking it slow, and that we aren't going to demand anything of each other that the other isn't ready to give. Does that make sense?"

Leonard thought that over, not liking it much but unable to find any counterargument likely to be effective. "More than I'd like," he grudgingly admitted at last. "I mean, you know, as long as 'taking it slow' covers everything other than actual sex. Which I have to tell you is not at all how I was brought up to think about this. But . . . like I said . . . I'm in for whatever you're willing to give. Because I'd be an utter moron to turn you down."

Penny reached out and ran one finger down his chest. "So you're okay if the two of us just . . . keep this a private, casual thing? For now?"

Leonard sighed, exerting some effort to repress a shiver at the contact. "I think so, but I have to ask one thing." He reached up and took her hand; he really didn't want an answer to this question, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep without it. "Does 'casual' mean 'able to date other people'? 'Cause I gotta tell you, casual or not, I'd have a really hard time seeing you with someone else at this point."

Penny blinked, suddenly somber. Leonard wondered hopefully if that meant she didn't like the idea of seeing him with another girl either—although he had to admit, the likelihood of her seeing that before he saw her with another guy was extremely low. "Tell you what," she said at length. "Call it free to date, on the condition that we promise each other anybody _else_ we date will _also_ be only a casual thing. No competition, in other words. If anything else looks like it's starting to get serious, we'll give each other a heads-up and . . . re-evaluate the situation. Deal?"

Leonard let out his breath and nodded. "Deal," he said at last, and shifted his hand to grip hers as if they'd just shaken on it. "I promise. No serious dates with anybody else unless I clear it with you first."

"Likewise." Penny suddenly pointed at him and looked earnest. "Oh, but there's an exception if I get a chance to jump Johnny Depp. Or Leonardo DiCaprio. Or Keanu Reeves."

Leonard smirked. "Fine. Leo, Keanu and Johnny are on your auto-clearance list." He put his hand to his breastbone with affected dignity. "And I'll make the same reservations for Jewel Staite, Summer Glau and Christina Hendricks."

Penny frowned. "Who're they?"

"They're famous actresses!"

Penny shrugged. "Never heard of 'em."

"They were on _Firefly!_ And the movie _Serenity_!" Leonard's voice rose indignantly.

"Never heard of those either. You know, Leonard, you're allowed to name _anybody_ , here, like _really_ famous people."

Leonard gave up. "Fine. Uh, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, and—oh, what the hell: Betty White." Penny burst into laughter, and Leonard sat up, not sure whether he was offended or amused. "Hey, you think I couldn't get with Sandra Bullock if I had a chance?"

"Oh, honey," Penny chortled, sitting up herself, "you wouldn't stand a chance with _Betty White._ Unless you were both really drunk and she was coming off a bad relationship." She got herself under control, saw his hurt look, and threw her arms around him in a sudden hug. "Because only then would she be lucky enough to find out how _awesome_ you are. Okay, baby?"

Leonard really did think he was entitled to be offended here, but it was remarkably difficult to maintain any degree of sincere outrage with Penny's magnificent breasts pressed against his bare chest. He began sliding his hands down Penny's back, planning a surprise attack on her posterior, but was interrupted when she suddenly pulled away and looked down at herself with a grimace. "Ew," she said. "Okay, I really need a cleanup break. Things are . . . uh . . . heading south, down there."

"Shower?" suggested Leonard.

Penny nodded, then did an abrupt double-take and smacked herself in the forehead. "Aw, _crap,_ I forgot _._ Mine still isn't working."

For a change, Leonard's brain actually worked as fast as he liked to think it always did. "My place? If we're quiet, I can sneak you in with me. I mean, Sheldon'll give me my second strike for using the shower after ten p.m., but it'll be worth it." He tried for a naughty grin. "And you know, I think I've had enough time to reload now; we actually _could_ try full-on shower sex. I'll even bring my inhaler along."

Penny returned the grin approvingly. "Dr. Hofstadter, getting kinky! I like it." She kissed him, then tilted her head. "But you've really got to explain this whole 'strike' business to me one of these days."

"No, no, trust me, I really don't."

* * *

Getting to sleep had always been difficult for Sheldon. The downside of a brain which was constantly working at the speed, pitch and fury it did, and was always looking for new ideas and distractions, was that it took real effort to slow down and shut it off, especially given the basically sedentary nature of his preferred daily activities. It was one reason he tried to keep his schedule as fixed as possible; he could handle minor alterations like the occasional dinner out, but major irregularities could significantly disrupt his ability to properly wind down. Worse still, the sensitivity of his hearing meant even when he had successfully achieved REM- or trans-REM sleep, it rarely took more than one aberration in the noise patterns surrounding his bedchamber to bring him bolt upright. Much as he knew it annoyed Leonard occasionally, the proscription against showering after 10:00 PM that he'd codified into the Roommate Agreement was more than a thoughtless selfishness; it was a necessary self-care mechanism, and a convenient control on water bill expenses as well.

As a result, when he found himself abruptly kicked out of an odd but interesting dream where he was conversing with an anthropomorphic version of the E=mc2 formula (it had Einstein's German accent and was complaining that lazy writers used it as a cheap shorthand for characters to look smart), his first reaction on realizing he'd been woken by the noise of the shower was an annoyed, "Aw, frickety-frack!" He jumped to his feet and was about to storm into the bathroom when he suddenly realized something else: there was more going on than just showering. He could distinctly hear the mutter of speech beneath the water's roar, although making out who the voice belonged to was beyond him unless he got closer. Sheldon put his palm over his forehead. _Oh, wonderful, now he's gone and started talking to himself like that senile tenured old fool Dr. Rothman_ . . . .

But wait—Leonard didn't normally talk to himself at a volume that bothered anyone; it was one of the first habits he'd operantly conditioned into his friend, back when they'd first become roommates. Sheldon suddenly stiffened, his hands flying to his mouth to hold in his squeak of panic. Was someone else in their shower? Had a homeless person broken in, finally so desperate to get clean that he'd resorted to crime? Moving as quietly as he could, Sheldon clambered out of bed, grabbed his robe, put it on, and tiptoed out of his room—his door opened without a sound, thanks to his regular oiling of the hinges for just such an emergency.

Back pressed to the wall, the noise of the shower and the muffled murmurs, whispers and grunts concealing his catlike steps, Sheldon slipped down the hallway. With one knuckle he tapped on Leonard's door as quietly as he could. _taptaptap_ "Leonard!" he whispered. _taptaptap_ "Leonard!" _taptaptap_ "Leonard!" There was no response. He flattened his palm on Leonard's door and pushed it gently open, until the light spilling in from the corridor revealed the truth: Leonard's bed was unoccupied. Sheldon gasped, this time clapping both hands to his mouth. Leonard wasn't even back yet! He was alone in the apartment, with a stranger in his bathroom! _Using his shower!_

Should he call the police? No; the average response time for the Pasadena police service in this neighbourhood was well over seven minutes, easily enough time for the interloper to finish his ablutions and resume his campaign of domestic terror. Why, Leonard might be about to walk into the homicidal vagabond's path any minute—or worse, the invader's path might be aimed at his _own_ room, ready to butcher any helpless innocent genius scientist who got in his way before curling up comfortably to sleep in the bloodsoaked bed! Sheldon gulped, summoning every last shred of his physical courage. Clearly it was up to him, and no one else, to defend their home.

He ducked into Leonard's room, grabbed his friend's lightsaber from the closet, activated it ( _Zzzrrroommmsh!_ ) and advanced down the hall towards the bathroom, the blade's glow casting an eerie green light before him. The shower was still running; the person inside sounded like he was in pain, giving off little moans and grunts that reminded Sheldon of nothing so much as someone coping with horrible belly cramps. Sheldon's own bowels contracted in fear. _Oh, no, he's in withdrawal! It's a junkie!_ His mother had warned him of the horrors which addictions could make of men. He paused on the threshold of the bathroom door, breathing deeply, planning to leap into the bathroom with a karate-scream _kiai_ . . . but his courage failed him at the last minute. A person could get hurt that way. Better to fall back on the tactic he'd learned from watching his father's poker games: Bluffing and intimidation.

Hovering just outside the door, he drew a deep breath and yelled, " _Attention, sanitary interloper!_ "

A weirdly echoing yelp of shock and panic split the air within the bathroom, followed by a horrible thumping and banging, so forceful it sounded like there was more than one body in there—but that was just _too_ unlikely; even Sheldon wasn't prepared to bet on murdering burglar-hobos showering in pairs. Still, the interloper was clearly on the defensive. Heartened, Sheldon raised his voice again. "Listen to me, interloper! I am the rightful resident of these premises and I am armed! Nobody has to be hurt here, so I'm going to give you one opportunity to—"

" _Sheldon!_ " This voice Sheldon recognized. "For God's sake, Sheldon, it's _me!_ What the hell?!"

"Leonard?!" Sheldon blinked, deactivated the lightsaber and came in, finding Leonard peering myopically out around the shower curtain, gasping for breath. "Why were you talking to yourself in the shower? I thought you were a home invader."

Leonard gaped at him, his hair frothy with shampoo and sticking every which way; his expression was a mix of flabbergasted shock and outrage so clear even Sheldon could read it. "Sheldon, what in the name of God would make you think a home invader would use our _shower_ before killing us?!"

Sheldon thought that over. Leonard did have a good point, rare as that was. "I suppose you're right," he admitted. "It would have been much more efficient to kill us _first_ and _then_ wash himself off. I'll remember that." He turned to go, then paused and turned back. "Did you just _giggle_ at me?"

Leonard's expression went through the most extraordinary array of changes, finally winding up in something Sheldon thought might be resignation. "I, uh . . . laughed in hysteria. You did scare the crap out of me."

"Oh! Then the tactic was effective. Excellent, I'll remember that too." He turned to go again. Then he stopped, as something occurred to him, and turned back a second time. "Leonard? From your presence in the shower, I'm assuming your installation of Penny's TV equipment is concluded?"

"Uh, yes, yes. Yeah, I fixed her right up." Leonard gave an odd little smile—a peculiar thing to be proud of, given the task's simplicity, but Sheldon supposed Leonard had to take his satisfactions where he found them.

"Good. And from the fact that you're here rather than, as I believe the colloquialism is, 'spending the night', I'm assuming that any attempt at coitus was unsuccessful?"

Leonard turned red. "I'd really rather not talk about that right now, Sheldon— _uuuuhhhuuh_!" His eyes crossed slightly with the involuntary-sounding exclamation; he looked as if something very surprising, or very pleasing, had just occurred to him. His eyes flicked down at himself and then away, and he swallowed.

Sheldon frowned. "Are you all right, Leonard?"

"Uh, yes! Yes, I'm fine, absolutely, fine. Just a momentary burst of _ahhahhaahaa_ , cold water." Leonard blinked furiously, his face twitching.

"Cold water? Really?" Sheldon's frown deepened. "Might be worth calling the landlord in the morning, then."

Leonard closed his eyes. "Sheldon, is there a reason you're still here? And still . . . _talking?_ "

"Well, there's the business of your violating the ten o'clock shower curfew and the consequent second strike, but we can leave that for the morning too," said Sheldon. He put the toilet seat lid down and sat on it, ignoring Leonard's groan. "No, Leonard, what I really wanted to discuss was your obsession with our new neighbour. It's obvious to me that, to paraphrase a popular saying, your libido is writing checks your personality isn't going to be able to cash. This futile attempt to gain Penny's favour is already leading you to disrupt our whole routine, and I only foresee it getting worse when you finally comprehend that futility yourself." He gave Leonard an earnest look. "I'm looking out for _you_ here, Leonard. I don't like to see my best friend moping around in despair. It upsets me . . . ." He trailed off. "Are you _sure_ you're all right? You're giving off more tics than a malfunctioning cuckoo clock."

"No, no, Iiiiiiii . . . I'm just fine, Sheldon." But Leonard's breathing had increased to a rapid, shallow pace as if he was trying to manage pain; only the fact that his mouth's weird contortions looked more like smiles than grimaces broke the pattern. As if noticing Sheldon's scrutiny, he harrumphed and seemed to master himself, though his eyes still looked glazed. "Thank you for thinking of me, Sheldon, but I really—I'm sure I'll be _oooookay!_ " He shuddered.

"Oh. Well, if you're sure." Sheldon hid his disappointment at the failure of his "tics" joke. Maybe he should try it with a different pun next time. "Well then, goodnight."

"Good _night_ , Sheldon!" With a groan that sounded almost as if he was in physical agony, Leonard yanked the shower curtain closed.

Sheldon sighed and left the bathroom, but got only partway down the hall before he caught one last detail of interest in the shower's soundscape. Deciding to be conscientious, he went back to the bathroom and simply called through the door, rather than delay things by distracting Leonard. "And by the way, Leonard, I'd sincerely recommend against washing yourself so vigorously as you clearly were. I could hear the friction halfway back to my room. I'm sure I don't have to tell you about the heartbreak of excess chafing."

Leonard's breathing sounded even faster. "Thank you—Sheldon," he called back, half gasping. "I'll be—sure to—bear—that—in— _miiiiiiinnnnddddd_ . . . ." His voice broke up in a long, quivering moan and died with an exhausted grunt. Sheldon frowned. Had he heard another giggle in there? No, surely not; it must just be a sonic artifact of the bathroom's acoustics. He shrugged and went back to his bedroom.

 _Poor Leonard_ , he thought, getting into bed. _A legitimately decent intellect, wasted on this pointless pursuit_. Well, people did grow and change. Maybe one day he would realize the lunacy of society's whole obsession with coitus, and dedicate himself to higher things, as Sheldon had. On that day, he truly would be the perfect best friend . . . .

Sheldon snorted. No, that was about as likely as the idea that Sheldon himself would ever find any point in the whole matter, or meet a woman who shared enough of his intellect and his values to make it worthwhile trying. Such a being almost certainly didn't exist. He smiled scoffingly at the absurdity.

He lay his head back, compensating in his mind for the ambient sound of the shower, and within a few minutes was asleep.

THE END

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: As you can see, though the beginning part of this story owes almost everything to son-goku5's original idea and work, this story took its own direction in terms of plot and resolution, and allowed me to indulge the fact that I am much more of an overwriter and rambler (and the fact that I'm old enough to remember the** _ **Police Academy**_ **movies). As I am also nowhere near as good as SG5 at keeping smut fresh, original, arousing and interesting over the course of close to a million words, I have no intention of continuing on this timeline the way he has, and strongly recommend any reader who enjoyed this go back to "What Could Have Been" and sign up for updates. Any positive reactions should go to son-goku5; any negative reactions should be directed to me. Thanks again to everyone for indulging me, and rest assured I will be returning to updating** _ **The Metahuman Transfiguration**_ **soon!**


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